


You're All I Need to Know

by TwistedK



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: M/M, Modern AU, Slow Burn, Vampire AU, mono no aware
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-03
Updated: 2017-01-17
Packaged: 2018-03-05 01:26:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 23
Words: 44,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3099872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwistedK/pseuds/TwistedK
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Levi comes in for his annual physical exam. When Dr. Erwin Smith introduces himself, Levi is certain he is the same doctor he had thirty years ago. </p>
<p>Except he went by a different name and he hasn't aged at all.</p>
<p>  <i>“I wouldn’t know about that,” Erwin says, a little more relaxed. “Who knows? Perhaps there is that one great love that would stand time, if given the chance.”</i></p>
<p>Levi could start believing in that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Playing Doctor

Winters in Chicago are usually bitter. The wind bites into the skin and latches on like an angry rabid animal. It certainly doesn’t help when the beautiful architecture, something the city promotes to tourists, seem to be laid out to maximize wind tunnels at every block. In January, the skies stay gray for most of the daylight hours which Levi usually misses anyway. The sun is yet to rise when he takes the L to work, dressed in two layers of knits and a puffer jacket that goes all the way down to his calves. It’s already evening by the time he goes home. For the first time this winter, Levi stares up into the blank gray skies as he waits on the station platform, sandwiched between other waiting passengers, eager for the warmth of packed trains.

“It’s not bad today, huh?” a teenager says to his friend as he bounced on his heels.

“Yeah, last year was worse. Twenty-eight degrees is actually comfortable now,” his friend replies, his breath coming out in a thick fog. Levi glances at them from the side. Both boys wore hoodies and parkas, backpacks slung on their young shoulders. He rolled his eyes and rushed into the train car when it arrived to take a seat far from the doors.

Levi arrives at Trost Memorial Hospital twenty minutes before his appointment. Beads of sweat had gathered at the back of his head by the time he finishes checking in at the counter and he waits for his turn to be called to an examination room with his coat folded on his arms. The waiting room was large, well lit with large windows, lined with chairs for waiting patients. Levi inhales deeply and smiles a little to himself. Hospitals are havens to him. They’re so clean, so sterile, so properly kept.

Several minutes later, Levi stares at himself in a light green patient’s gown and a pair of socks on a small mirror across from him. He sits on an examination room within a smaller room with his legs dangling underneath him. The room was warm and the warmth was a welcome sensation to his freezing toes. Levi thinks back to the examination rooms in his hometown, the same one he had been ushered in for the past 30 or so years for his yearly physical exam. It was a dingy shoebox compared to this one. The old one didn’t have a small counter with a sink, a blood pressure monitor and thermometer holster on the wall, a computer, or even decent lighting that didn’t make him look worse than he actually was.

Levi thinks moving to a new city as a complete stranger is a good idea.

“Levi?” a deep, pleasant voice called from outside with a gentle knock.

“Yeah, I’m good,” Levi said, pulling on the gown to make sure his doctor doesn’t get an eyeful of him as a first impression. He didn’t know what kind of doctor Erwin Smith was. Only that according to his profile on the hospital website he accepts Levi’s insurance, he is in internal medicine, specializes in men’s health, and that patients rated him with four stars, whatever that meant.

The door opened and out came a tall, stocky blond with a strong jaw and brilliant blue eyes. He wore a light blue shirt, red tie, and a white coat. A pair of wire rimmed glasses rested on his aquiline nose, perfectly proportioned to his strong cheekbones, and nestled under prominent eyebrows.

Those eyebrows. Levi could recognize them from anywhere.

“Dr. Collins?” Levi blinks.

The man blinks back at him, jaw slightly ajar. He catches the expression before it registers in Levi’s mind.

“Ah, I’m sorry, you must’ve mistaken me for someone else,” the man smiles. “I’m Erwin Smith. You must be Levi.”

Levi nods. The man who calls himself Erwin Smith sounds sincere but he knows he isn’t mistaken. That man is James Collins. His doctor from his hometown. From when he was a toddler. He watches Erwin sit in front of the computer with his charts on hand, putting in information into the computer station. Levi cocks his head to the side at the hint of an amused line of Erwin’s lips, as if he’s keeping a joke.

“So, Levi,” Erwin turns to face him but keeps his eyes on Levi’s charts. “Here for a physical. Any pains, discomforts, or irregularities you’ve been experiencing lately?”

“No,” Levi responds. Even the doctor’s voice, deep, gentle and always sounding like a smile, definitely belongs to Dr. James Collins. This Erwin Smith is an exact copy.

Erwin keeps asking him routine questions. Does anyone in your family have cancer, hypertension, diabetes? No. Do you use intravenous drugs? No. Smoke? Occasionally. How often do you drink? Once a week. How often do you exercise? Five times a week, usually. Are you sexually active? Yes. Vaginal, oral, or anal sex?

"Oral and anal."

Erwin finally looks up at Levi’s response and meets a pair of clear gray eyes narrowed at him, scrutinizing every line and curve of his face.

“I assure you, Levi, the last time I checked, I am a Smith, not Collins,” he chuckles.

The same pair of gray eyes follow him as he takes the blood pressure monitor of the holder on the wall and wraps it around Levi’s arm. Levi doesn’t tell him that the nurse that ushered him in already took his blood pressure. In fact, the nurse already asked him all the questions Erwin just did. But he lets the doctor take his blood pressure anyway to get a closer look at his face.

It is just as he remembered it as a child of three or four, with his mother sitting with him on the examination table as Dr. Collins gave him a shot on his arm and smiled wide and genuine smiles at him as he puckered his face into a glare with dry eyes at the pricking pain. He has same golden blond hair, well-kept and parted to the side and combed to smooth perfection. Even the scent is as he remembers it. Clean, no fragrance, fresh. Erwin has the same angular face with a jaw that made him look powerful and bright blue eyes that shone.The same eyes looking directly at him now as the doctor touches his shoulder with large hands to lean forward so he can place the stethoscope on his bare back.

Erwin’s voice carries pleasantly in the room as he asks Levi more questions. Each and every sentence punctuated with Levi’s name. Levi has never thought his name to be particularly notable but with Erwin’s voice, it was both familiar and refreshing. Attractive even. Yet he can’t convince himself otherwise that this person is a different person from Dr. Collins.

“Levi,” Erwin starts. “I’m going to have you bent over the examination table here. Hands on the table please. I’m going to start with the prostate exam.”

Levi averts his glance to side as he gets off the table. At 35, he figures it was a good time to start getting these despite the fact it’s recommended to start at 45. He would’ve started earlier but he had only recently lost all shame about his asshole after recognizing the fact that he’s never really been into women much his whole life. Once he started sleeping with men, he figured a finger up his ass for medical purposes can’t be so bad.

Except, as he offered his butt to Erwin, he could feel his face instantly warming up. The sound of lube being squeezed out must have some kind of classical conditioning effect on Levi. It reminded him of what usually comes next which he tries hard not to picture as Erwin places his hand on the small of Levi’s back, as a notice.

“Okay, let me know if you get uncomfortable, Levi,” Erwin says.

“Takes more than that to get me uncomfortable,” Levi snorts and elicits a warm chuckle from Erwin.

Levi can’t help but notice how warm and soft Erwin’s bare hand feels against his skin. His hand is large enough to touch a good portion of Levi’s back and it’s becoming difficult not to lean in to the touch. Or picture Erwin’s azure eyes on his ass. Would his jaw clench, would he smile when he starts?

Levi closes his eyes and turns to the side, holding his breath, when he feels Erwin’s finger prod his entrance. It was almost too gentle to be medical, like asking for permission from a lover. Levi shakes the thought off. Erwin must just be a decent doctor. That thought slips right out of his mind when Erwin slips his finger in, gentle, warm, thick, and straight to Levi’s goddamn prostate.

“Ngh!” Levi blushes at the sound in his throat and purses his lips tightly.

“Just a little bit more, please bear it, Levi,” Erwin says. There is a hint of a smile in his voice but it wasn’t the good-natured smile of the pediatrician Dr. Collins anymore. It was smooth, slightly smoky. All Dr. Erwin Smith this time.

Levi hangs his head between outstretched arms as Erwin hits his prostate again. A bright red tint paints his face with terrible embarrassment. Levi, a grown man, cannot seem to find any control to keep himself from clenching around his doctor’s finger or to keep his throat closed long enough to stop another grunt from escaping, laced with too much pleasure. Luckily, Erwin takes off his finger from Levi’s sweet spot soon enough, but doesn’t pull out his finger just yet.

There is a moment of doubt with Levi. Erwin’s hand on his back slides almost imperceptibly up his back and he wonders if it’s legal to rut himself back against his doctor’s hand. He could. If one finger can get him making sounds like that, imagine two. Or three. Is Dr. Smith proportioned everywhere? Levi fights back and debates in his head that it’s completely inappropriate to arch his back at this very moment and, Jesus Christ, he has more self-control than that.

Before the debate in his mind ends, Erwin stands beside him, discarding a lubed glove in the waste bin beside the examination table. He looks at Levi, face flushed, exhaling heavily out his slender nose, knuckles white against the edge of the table, eyes shut tightly.

“Are you okay, Levi?”

“Huh? Yeah. Yeah, I’m good,” Levi opens his eyes and realizes he had just developed a boner for his pediatrician.

He sits back on the table with his hand over his crotch and watches Erwin enter a few more things in the computer.

“Everything looks good so far,” he says to Levi. “I’ll have Greg take your blood when you’re dressed, so please come out when you’re ready. We’ll send the results for the blood test in about a week via the online chart system which I see you’re enrolled in already. Aside from that, do you have questions for me, Levi?”

Levi swallows. He doesn’t trust his voice when he cradles a boner under his hands. “You look exactly like my doctor. James Collins. I swear. You’re twins. Same hair, eyes, same eyebrows. You know him?”

Erwin holds Levi’s charts under his arm and smiles at Levi from the doorway, already halfway out. It is the same genuine, somewhat impressed, knowing smile that Dr. Collins gave Levi as a small child who refused the candy he gave him after the giving him a shot.

“I don’t, Levi. Besides, I highly doubt you’d remember someone that clearly from such a young age. Have a good one now.”

Levi raises a hand to wave.

He freezes halfway to the sound of the door clicking shut. Levi never mentioned Dr. Collins was his pediatrician.


	2. Praying for a Sign

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You’re shitting me, right?”
> 
> “What do you think, Levi?” his voice is clearly a taunt, condescending. Levi plays along because if what Erwin just revealed to him isn’t a sign, he doesn’t know what is. Even if that revelation is the truth or just a proof that his medical healthcare professional needs professional help himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm an ass, sorry. I have a penchant for knowing where the story will go but now how to get there. Thank you for the patience, the kudos, and the comments. Hope you enjoy this one!

Levi stands on the Blue Line platform in -5 degree weather, waiting for his ride to work. Despite the heat lamp directly above him and the waiting passengers surrounding him, he shivers. He’s tired and his nerves are on edge.

When he was 21, Levi was idealistic and desperate for a sign - the kind of arbitrary sign people pray for when they’ve lost their way or their purpose. Except Levi wasn’t lost. He just never had a path. He chased phantom muses in his dorm room well into the mornings as he indulged in the romance of being a writer as an English major, he’d sit with other students with tea in his hand and conviction in his heart, and yet at the end of it all, he didn’t know what it was for. He graduated and worked in a library, he wrote and published under a pseudonym in some quiet corner of the Internet, paid his bills, traded idealism for what he thought was adulthood, and somehow gave up looking for the sign.

Arbitrary signs are for people who prayed. Levi doesn’t pray.

His life grew quiet while his friends all moved to cities and followed their paths, their signs. He stayed and grew comfortable with the company of himself. He never questioned if he was lonely in his shoebox apartment, with a bed occasionally warmed by a strange man or woman, or if he actually enjoyed being alone.

Then he turned 29. He looked in the mirror of his small bathroom and found that the grayish lavender bags under his eyes have become permanent residents on his face and that he was 29 with nothing to show for it. It was the first time since he was in college that he felt like he needed a sign. So he moved to Chicago to look for one.

And before long, he was back in a shoebox apartment, a bed occasionally warmed by a strange man, his pseudonym buried under a hundred others in a noisier corner of the Internet, paid his bills, and enjoyed the company of himself. He’d forgotten that he once asked for a sign - asked, not prayed - until he went for his yearly physical and met Dr. Erwin Smith. Or James Collins, unaged in 30 years.

“Hello, Trost Clinic, how may I help you?”

Levi cups his gloved hand over his face to shield his skin from the biting cold. “I’d like to set up an appointment with Dr. Erwin Smith.”

“Okay, I’ll connect you to his assistant, Greg. One moment, please.”

The cold seeps into his gloves anyway, his skin, his bones. He watches his usual train stop and load up passengers, some familiar ones that he’d always see in his morning commute. Somehow, he knows that his heart isn’t beating as fast as it was because he was missing his train and that he might be late for work.

“This is Levi Ackerman,” Levi says to Greg when he take him off hold, a little breathless. “I want to set up an appointment. Soon as possible.”

Greg makes a sound and Levi hears his name whispered away from the phone receiver on the other end of the line. Then some rustling.

“Levi.”

It’s Erwin Smith. Expectant. Smiling.

“We need to talk,” Levi says.

“Indeed, Levi,” Erwin replies. Levi has to inhale a lung full of icy air to keep his teeth of chattering because his name sounds like a taunt from the other end. “Would you like to meet over coffee this afternoon? We have a cafeteria at the hospital. Unless you’d like to wait until my shift is over at--”

“Is 5, fine?”

* * *

 

Five o’clock was fine. Six o’clock was not. The shivering is back in Levi’s bones but, this time, he’s sitting in the Trost Memorial Hospital cafeteria with an empty cup of tea on the table and a broad, blond man sitting across from him. Whatever sign he asked for, he certainly wishes he hadn’t now.

“Are you all right, Levi?” Erwin asks, leaning his head on a loose fist and gracing the man with a lazy, but interested look. “You haven’t said a word in a while.”

Levi looks up from his hands on his lap and finds himself suddenly irritated and stupid at the same time. He feels like he’s 4 again and he’s playing a game he doesn’t understand and Erwin knows all the rules.

“You’re shitting me, right?”

“What do you think, Levi?” his voice is clearly a taunt, condescending. Levi plays along because if what Erwin just revealed to him isn’t a sign, he doesn’t know what is. Even if that revelation is the truth or just a proof that his medical healthcare professional needs professional help himself.

“A vampire,” Levi says reluctantly. “You’re a vampire. And…”

Erwin gives him a look that urges him to keep talking. He furrows his brows and still manages to raise an eyebrow around his words.

“And you’re a vampire.”

“You said that already,” Erwin smiles wide with straight white teeth. Straight. No protruding fangs, to Levi’s disappointment. The disappointment catches Levi off guard because he wishes this sign is the truth because he feels like he's 21 again and recklessly optimistic. But it looks like it’s just a loose screw in his doctor's head.

But that doesn’t explain Dr. Collins. Or why Erwin knows about him. Or why his name sounds like something forbidden in Erwin’s vampire mouth.

Levi opens his mouth to talk but closes again until the corners of his mouth pull down. He wonders if this is what his friends felt like when they got the sign they prayed for - suspicious. Maybe that’s where he went wrong. They prayed and whoever their god was gave them a blessing. He only asked, so this is what he got. Vampire doctor with the clearest blue eyes patiently staring him down.

“Now what?” Levi finally says because where does one go from there?

“Now you don’t tell anyone,” Erwin says, more sweet than threatening. “And you go to dinner with me.”

Levi’s gray eyes widen and Erwin, momentarily, loses track of the cautious conversation they’re having. He loses it completely when Levi huffs out a laugh, too soft for the hard glare he’s been subjected to for the past hour. They both feel like just broke through an invisible wall but they’re still playing this game.

“Really? _That’s_ your line?” Levi says.

Relief spreads from between his shoulders where he’s been hunched from. He lets a few more huffs escape him. So maybe Erwin Smith isn’t crazy. Just misinformed on the more acceptable ways to ask your patient out on a date. Never mind that that doesn’t explain James Collins. But when Erwin laughs the way Erwin Smith laughs - smooth and smoky - Levi doesn’t mind so much.

“Can I wear silver?” he teases.

“Yes, Levi,” Erwin chuckles around his name and he shivers, just slightly, for a completely different reason this time. “You can order garlic bread, too, if you want.”

And he does.

They go to Corner Bakery, a block away from the hospital, because Erwin has to go back to work in an hour. Levi orders the same thing Erwin does, a chicken carbonara, and when they take their seats, he eyes the man. They both get a side of garlic bread. Levi thinks it would be silly to assume that real vampires would die of garlic. That is, it’s silly to assume there were real vampires in the first place and that Corner Bakery uses real garlic in their bread.

Erwin eyes him, too, but more playfully as they both reach for their breads like a tacky western movie to see who drops dead at first bite. Erwin takes a generous chomp of his bread with perfectly lined teeth, no fangs, and Levi decides Erwin was right. James Collins probably didn’t look like this. He couldn’t have remembered how the man looked like 30 years ago when he was four.

And Erwin Smith’s confession isn’t a sign. It’s a bad pick up line.

He huffs another laugh as he bites into his own bread. Erwin raises one thick brow and a corner of his lips at him.

“I thought you meant _I_ was dinner,” Levi says. He smiles, relieved that he feels normal for the first time since Erwin shut the door at him in the examination room.

“That _is_ tempting. But I don’t bite on the first date.” He brings the garlic bread to his lips again, eyes still on Levi, and opens his mouth in a smile.

And there it is: a gratuitously large smile, toothy, white, seductive. Fanged. The corners of Erwin’s face twist into something so wicked it’s beautiful that Levi’s face freezes, eyes wide at the long canines. When he darts his eyes up, he catches the blues of Erwin’s eyes disappear like marbles sinking in black ink. Something should look so horrifying, but, despite himself, Levi’s own mouth twists into a smile.

Erwin bites down on the bread and tears it off. His eyes were blue again but a little uncertain. Now he’s the cautious player in this game and it’s Levi’s turn to play.

“Okay.”

“Okay?” Erwin echoes.

“Okay, you’re a vampire,” Levi purses his smile. “With bad pick up lines. You must be _really_ old.”

He feels like he’s 35 and he has his sign. It’s not the kind that leads some path to far off personal greatness like most signs are. It’s just a sign, nothing divine, but one he’s willing to follow because Levi gets the feeling that it could lead him out of his shoebox apartment, his mostly cold bed, and maybe to the company of Erwin Smith, the vampire.

"I can't believe I let you put a finger up my ass."


	3. Invitations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You have to invite me in, Levi,” Erwin says, his voice inviting itself.
> 
> “Perhaps I don’t trust you,” Levi rolls his eyes. The invitation sits on the tip of his tongue and he can’t find a reason not to invite Erwin in other than the desire to push his buttons and have his own reservations - a petty revenge for Erwin’s distrust.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, Jen!

One dinner turns into three, which then turns into coffee at lunch on Mondays because Erwin eats too slowly and Levi is too irritable to eat after an influx of emails at work. Then it’s movies on Saturday afternoons because Levi doesn’t want to pay $12 for an evening showing and he’s secretly been itching to ask why Erwin hasn’t burst into flames yet when the sun shines and bounces off his golden blond hair like magic.

A month passes and the only thing Erwin reveals about his vampire lifestyle is that he sometimes pilfers blood sample vials from work and slips it into his coffee. Levi often tells him he looks like a secretive alcoholic doing that and Erwin rewards his dry humor with a warm chuckle. It makes Levi have to take a painful mouthful of his hot bitter coffee to distract him from how the sound that Erwin makes crawls under his sweater and makes the hair on the back of his neck stand.

Other than that, Levi often forgets the man is different, that he doesn’t age and that when he drinks his bloodied coffee his eyes sometimes darken again, the sclera drowning in black ink. Often they are just two friends in a cold and windy city, one with a salty mouth the other with a clean one always curved into a pleasant smirk. Their friendship slowly becomes familiar but they still skirt around each other cautiously, like they’re still playing a game.

* * *

“How do you turn someone?” Levi asks one afternoon on their way back from seeing a movie. Winter digs into his bones as they walk to the Red Line station where they both take trains to separate directions. There are countless other questions he wants to ask like why can he walk in the sun, what happens if he doesn’t drink blood, how does one kill a vampire. But this one question seems the most important.

“You’ve asked me that before,” Erwin responds, their steps synced perfectly on the snow-padded sidewalk. He barely has anything on, Levi observes. Just a coat and a thin scarf, which makes Levi clutch closer all three layers of clothes and coat around him. He wonders if vampires feel cold.

“And you were an ass about it and didn’t answer me,” Levi says. Erwin, of course, doesn’t answer again. He just gives Levi a mischievous smirk - one corner of his mouth raised sharply and eyes full of dark, delicious secrets.

Levi tries to glare him into submission but he learns that Erwin, probably with his eternal lifetime of experiences, is not easily intimidated. Instead, Erwin holds his glare with his tight-lipped smirk and an interest that makes Levi feel like he’s a museum curiosity. His glare always turns into an awkward scowl and a fluttering heartbeat.

“Perhaps I don’t trust you,” Erwin says simply as they wait at a crosswalk.

“Says the fucking vampire,” Levi grumbles, a little offended. “I’d like to remind you that I haven’t told anyone about your little secret.”

Erwin turns to him with a suspicious expression, a slight sharpness to his eyes that reminds Levi that he is not an ordinary man. He swallows and tenses as the creature seems to loom over him, oddly, without having moved an inch. Shining white fangs make their way into his thoughts, sinking into them like a bite to the neck, right into the vein. Levi’s heart races, not for fear, but something akin to thrill. An unyielding, curious thrill.

“Why haven’t you bitten me?” It seems like fairer question.

“You’re far more handsome alive than dead, I’m afraid,” Erwin says, too smoothly to be unintentional. He deposits his naked hands into his pockets while Levi takes one out and rewards him with a raised middle finger.

* * *

The next week, the snow falls like it’s the end of the world and Levi refuses to leave his apartment to go to the movies. The cold settles into his bones, making him feel heavy and sickly, so he unfolds his sleeper couch and burrows himself in a pile of blankets in the middle of the gray afternoon. He grunts when there’s a knock on his door.

Perhaps if he stays still and quiet, the uninvited visitor will go away. He smothers a sneeze under the comforters, making a mental note to sanitize the sheets _thoroughly_ at the soonest possible time.

“Levi,” a smooth, smoky voice carries beyond his apartment door and automatically Levi goes to answer it, his woolen sock-padded steps a little quicker than usual.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Levi meets Erwin at the door, still wrapped in blankets. Levi doesn’t have to ask how Erwin knows where he lives; the man has access to all his information back at Trost Memorial. Erwin waits in the hallway in a coat and a thin scarf, ungloved hand on a bag of takeout food. Levi eyes the exposed hand. “What is wrong with you, aren’t you cold?”

“No, but you clearly are,” Erwin says, eyeing him up and down. Levi hasn’t eaten all day and he feels lethargic, the smell of greasy Chinese takeout weakens his defenses a bit. He makes his way back to the couch until he realizes Erwin doesn’t follow him into his apartment. He cocks an eyebrow at the tall, blond man standing so picturesque in the dingy hallway, too attractive under the unflattering light.

“You have to invite me in, Levi,” Erwin says, his voice inviting itself.

“Perhaps _I_ don’t trust _you_ ,” Levi rolls his eyes. The invitation sits on the tip of his tongue and he can’t find a reason not to invite Erwin in other than the desire to push his buttons and have his own reservations - a petty revenge for Erwin’s distrust.

“You kill them.”

“What?”

“You kill someone to turn them, Levi.” Erwin sighs, defeated but still smiling.

He pauses for the explanation that’s supposed to follow but Erwin just stands patiently by the threshold and offers up the food again. It’s another useless answer and Levi has half a mind to shut the door on this bullshit and move on with this his life. He’s survived 35 years without vampires; he could do another 35 without. But he also has half a mind to sense bait when he hears his name from Erwin’s ever-present smirk. So he bites. So curiosity killed the cat. Satisfaction will bring it back.

“Come in then. Put your shoes on the tray there.”

Levi misses the way Erwin’s shoulder relax as he quietly takes his shoes, scarf and coat off while Levi folds the sleeper back into a proper couch. Erwin looks around the apartment with interest and Levi is suddenly a little self-conscious about his home. It’s a small studio apartment with just enough room for a kitchenette, a couch, a low coffee table, a television and a desk, with supplies meticulously arranged on top. It’s a large enough place for Levi but he doesn’t realize how small it really is until Erwin stands in the middle of his living room, his presence taking up more space than his body.

“Are you ill?” Erwin asks as he makes his way to the couch with Styrofoam trays of fried rice and noodles. He offers them both to his host and Levi takes the fried rice to the coffee table, sitting cross legged on the floor, Erwin following suit.

“Just cold,” Levi stirs the rice. “I don’t like winters.”

“Why did you move here then, Levi?”

Levi almost says that he came here looking for his proverbial sign - his purpose in life - but then he would be compelled, by his new odd need to be interesting to this person, to say that he’s found it. _It_ being Erwin. It’s not something Levi thinks people tell their friends.

“I was looking for a job,” he lies. “Do vampires get cold?”

Erwin says they don’t, then asks him if he’s always lived alone. They exchange questions and answers over their meals, Erwin’s questions always punctuated with Levi’s name. Like an invitation. Keep going. Keep going, his questions implore. Levi keeps going because Erwin is actually answering his questions this time. Satisfaction, indeed.

Some vampires can walk in the sun; they don’t get cold or warm but have to dress like they do to avoid suspicion. They drink blood to ease off a thirst for it, like sex. They can live without it but it’s a natural craving and eternal life would be miserable about it, Erwin laughs.

His eyes grow clearer with each secret revealed and Levi can’t help but notice how bright the blues of Erwin’s eyes are.

In exchange, Erwin learns that Levi writes fantasy stories under a pseudonym he refuses to disclose. Crowds make him anxious but strangers, like Erwin once was to him, bring out a raw honesty and spontaneity out of him.

He doesn’t tell Erwin that he’s never had a serious relationship, not wanting Erwin to find out it’s because he isn’t all that interesting, with his tiny apartment and meager social circle that currently includes Erwin, his boss, and the elderly lady who lives next door whom he suspects is deaf. Levi doesn’t find it particularly worthy of sharing anyway.

By the time the skies are completely dark, Levi sits on one end of his couch with his knees close to his chest, wrapped in a blanket and Erwin sits on the other end, relaxed with an arm over the backrest of the couch and a cup of blood-spiked tea on the other hand. Levi doesn’t mind that Erwin takes up more than half his couch with the tips of his fingertips so close that Levi could feel some of their warmth. Or that he has to tuck his feet as close to himself as possible to avoid brushing them on Erwin’s knee. Personal space seems like a small price to pay for the answers he’s getting, he tells himself.

It’s like two normal people getting to know each other in a platonic way. Levi refuses to acknowledge the way that thought irks him a little that Erwin’s gentler smiles and quiet but genuine interest is only a friendly gesture.

At least it’s no longer a game of who can be more mysterious. The air is finally clear of the looming suspicion that has become a constant in their meetings. _Do you trust me now?_ Levi itches to ask but the words are caught in his throat when Erwin gives him an expectant look, seemingly waiting for another question. Erwin doesn’t have to say his name as an invitation anymore and all Levi wants to do is dive into those clear blue eyes and find all the secrets he can uncover. Erwin looks willing enough to let him.

“Are you lonely?” Erwin asks after a long silence. Gray eyes narrow at the question. Levi doesn’t think about it often. He likes the solitude. He isn’t sad about it. Yet, the question strikes a raw nerve somewhere in his body, like a misplaced note in a familiar song.

“That’s a loaded question,” Levi cocks a thin brow. Erwin laughs quietly. “I’m gonna need an answer to a tough question from you first.”

Erwin nods in approval: the suggestion is fair. Levi turns a few questions in his head: Has Erwin ever turned anyone? Has he killed anyone? Who turned him? How old is he? What’s it like to live forever?

But when he looks at Erwin, with his patient smile, his long, sturdy and empty arms, the way strands of blond hair carelessly fall across his forehead when he tilts his head to the side with no one to sweep it back, Levi finds his question like it’s the most obvious one to ask.

“Are you?”

Erwin’s angular features soften and gratitude fills the soft creases around his mouth and his eyes when he smiles. Not the knowing, secret-filled smirk but a gentle, relieved smile.

“I am,” Erwin is glowing. As odd a reaction as it is, Levi can’t help the strange but welcome understanding spreading in him.

“I think I am, too,” he says, only because it feels a little less so with Erwin on his couch.

****  



	4. Personal Space

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His throat dries up and his focus on the show crumbles into a thousand confused thoughts darting from his foot on Erwin’s lap, Erwin’s hand on his skin, sharp blue eyes watching him every time he makes a minuscule movement like a predator stalking its prey. It’s thrilling and frightening and all too enticing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, Jen!

“How was the date, Levi?”

Erwin dries his hands on the towel neatly hanging from a hook on the back of Levi’s bathroom door, watching Levi make two cups of tea through the half open door. He pauses as Levi takes a vial of blood, likely taken from Erwin’s own coat pocket, and pours it into his cup. The quiet, unsolicited gesture stirs something like fondness in Erwin. He fishes out a bobby pin from the square glass jar Levi keeps on his bathroom counter, next to the perfectly lined hygiene products, before joining Levi in the kitchenette.

“It was gross. _He_ was gross,” Levi says.

Levi scratches his lower back while the tea steeps, his white t-shirt pushed up just enough for the pale skin on the small of his back to show. In exchange for having the space heater constantly on the highest setting right by his fold out bed, his skin has become itchy and dry.

But still it reminds Erwin of supple pampered bosoms pushed up in silken dresses of Parisian woman he used to woo and feed on. Levi’s nails leave subtle marks across the exposed skin and Erwin finds himself staring for a bit, mesmerized at the red trails across the blank slate of ivory. An odd pang of hunger scrapes at his throat. He can smell the blood in his tea. But he can also smell the lotion on Levi’s skin—something citrusy and clean. He lets himself wonder what it would taste like — not the blood underneath it, just the smooth expanse of Levi’s back.

“The guy was all about waxing poetic on how he’s this generous lover,” Levi scoffs, curling his fingers in air quotes. “Yeah, that’s got my panties all wet. Seriously. Who does that shit on a first date? You know he actually asked me if I take it up the ass? Exact fucking words.”

Erwin chuckles. Not at the unfortunate story, but at the way Levi rolls his eyes. All the venom in his words and disdain in his eyes couldn’t make him less appetizing at that moment. Yet even when Levi’s neck is so carelessly exposed as the man stretches his weary shoulders, Erwin can’t picture himself sinking his teeth into the smooth flesh. It doesn’t seem fit for puncturing.

Erwin smiles at the thought of all other things fit for Levi’s skin. Like a gentle touch or a kiss.

And just as the idea appears, Erwin pushes it down with the hunger. He is old enough to know all the eternal dangers of romance. After all, he’s had his ample share of lovers. Perhaps he wouldn’t be so lonely with a friend for a change. Perhaps, they last longer.

“Tinder hardly seems like a place to find someone decent,” Erwin chastises with a teasing note.

He follows Levi to the couch, taking the blood-laced cup handed to him. Erwin settles on one end of the couch, with an arm across the backrest and his feet on the coffee table, much to Levi’s annoyance. His host takes a seat on the other end, back rested on the arm rest and legs folded under a blanket, completely too careful that the very tips of his toes are a mere wiggle away from Erwin's thigh. They’ve spent enough days like this that couch surrenders and creaks to the occupants willingly

“I’m too old for this shit, Erwin,” Levi sighs. “You’re old – how do you do it?”

“Not with Tinder, I’m afraid,” Erwin responds. Levi kicks him lightly.

Levi wonders if vampires date.

When Erwin left his apartment that evening after the two acknowledged a shared predicament, Levi felt the full weight of his confession. The loneliness which had always been a quiet constant in his life slowly turned heavy in his chest. Only when he settled on the spot Erwin sat in and fell asleep on the remnant of his warmth did he find any comfort. The next day, Levi chastised himself. Erwin trusted him with his secrets and he’d do better than to assume that it was an invitation for companionship. He figured someone with so much experience as Erwin, someone so interesting, so fascinating could do better than the company of a recluse.

He deflates at the idea.

For a few Saturdays as the snow fell heavier in the city, he and Erwin traded their afternoon movies for a re-run of some vampire show on television while they settled into Levi’s couch. Erwin was endlessly amused by the lore of vampires in the show and even more entertained by Levi’s running commentary on the “two idiot vampires and their human damsel in distress. Do you get a six pack if you get turned?”

Erwin assures him that immortality and six-pack abs are not a package deal.

They rarely spoke while the television drawled on and Levi felt the weight of their words, their lonely confession ease off his shoulders. When Erwin left, Levi would settle into the blond’s abandoned spot until the remnants of his warmth were replaced by his own. It was a secret, stolen comfort.

Levi decides it’s silly. It feels too much like a crush and he’s too old and too human to be crushing on Erwin.

In the weeks that followed, he went on 4 dates—more dates than he’s been in since he moved to the city. He had hoped that the loneliness would subside for more than an afternoon once a man warmed his bed and he could go back to enjoying his solitude in his tiny couch. A warm couch, that was all he needed. Levi realizes after three dates, two of which ended with rejected propositions, that the only time he doesn’t feel so lonely was in his own apartment with a certain blond vampire taking over his couch and stealing bobby pins from his bathroom to keep his blond hair in place when he forgoes the pomade he uses for work.

As he sits there now, with a cup of tea and his toes now unashamedly tucked under Erwin’s thigh, his eyes are glued to the black line of the bobby pin holding back the golden hair. He thinks of hiding his bowl of pins next time and imagines tucking back that blond tuft with his own fingers.

“Are you seeing anyone?” the question carries just above the noise of the television. Levi immediately wishes the TV had been louder.

“From your experiences, Levi, I’d rather not,” Erwin turns to Levi and his eyes, full of fond interest, makes the man feel like he’s on display. “Besides, I spend too much time in your home to date.”

Guilt drives deep into Levi’s chest. He turns almost violently to the television to avoid Erwin’s gaze. “Fuck. Don’t let me keep you then.” The words come out harsher than he means.

Erwin chuckles, and Levi inwardly curse Erwin’s obliviousness to how his every reaction affects the nerves on Levi’s skin far more than they should. “It’s fine, Levi. I enjoy spending time with you.”

Levi doesn’t respond, too overwhelmed by the simple words to trust his voice or his mind to form anything coherent or not embarrassing at least. So they share the silence while the show plays. A bluish light washes over Erwin’s features, Levi keeps watching from the corner of his eyes. Shadows make Erwin’s jawline sharper, the curve of his nose catching the light from the screen, the throat moving so gracefully at every swallow of tea. They’re all far more interesting that the man on the show declaring his, literally, undying love for the human girl.

They watch an episode, then another until it’s evening and they’re almost done with the whole season re-run.

“I wonder where they get the lore for this show,” Erwin leaves his seat and takes the empty cups of tea on the coffee table, leaving Levi less annoyed that Erwin will not keep his feet off it.

“Any of it true?” Levi calls from the couch, stretching his legs and taking both feet out of the blanket to relish the heat Erwin’s butt leaves on the cushion.

“Not really. I don’t know what vervain is and I doubt herbs affect us like that.”

Levi watches in awe as Erwin stretches his arms up above his head, pulling his sweater taut against his wide chest and revealing a patch of golden hair on his exposed firm belly.

“It’s verbena,” Levi sputters out as he quickly looks away. The temptation of running a hand up Erwin’s sweater mellows.

“I see,” Erwin says, slightly amused. “Verbena is a pleasant smell. Lavender, on the other hand...”

“Vampires don’t like lavender?”

“Oh, no. I don’t like lavender.” And Levi makes a note of it right away.

Erwin’s attention renews at the thoughtful sound that Levi makes.

The odd hunger is back. He’s just had his blood and yet he’s itching for something. The way Levi’s neck is craned, his arms folded on his chest, his small feet exposed, prompts Erwin to swallow a dry lump in his throat. The flutter in his own gut doesn’t go unnoticed either. The way Levi turns his head to watch the commercial playing —or to avoid Erwin’s gaze—has Erwin staring again.

Levi, too focused on not focusing on Erwin, doesn’t fold his legs back to give Erwin back his spot on the couch. Erwin feels him freeze almost painfully when he takes Levi by the ankles to make space for himself and settle both Levi’s exposed feet on his lap like it’s the most familiar thing to do. And, really, it feels like it is.

Levi’s ankle is so tiny Erwin can almost wrap his hold hand around the bundle of bone, flesh, and veins.

Levi squirms and Erwin feels a hint of shame for startling the man with his action. The apartment stills, apart from the drawl of the television, and both of them feel their breath catch. Erwin waits for the thin line of disapproval to appear on Levi’s face. It’s not until he carefully starts to knead the bone on Levi’s ankle that they both find their breaths again.

Though unmoving, Levi’s heart races and his legs start to sweat under the blankets. His throat dries up and his focus on the show crumbles into a thousand confused thoughts darting from his foot on Erwin’s lap, Erwin’s hand on his skin, sharp blue eyes watching him every time he makes a minuscule movement like a predator stalking its prey. It’s thrilling and frightening and all too enticing. Not even his three failed dates combined can match the attention Erwin gives him. It’s a lovely thing to receive, but not one Levi is used to receiving.

“Levi.”

His thoughts all go to a single point: Erwin’s voice. Gray eyes meet blue like steady steel against unending waves in the sea. The kneading has stopped, Levi realizes.

“Erwin.”

Erwin’s fingers twitch at his name whispered. He wants to pull his hand away and leave. The weight of his own hand becomes an unwelcome burden, as if his own presence was an unwelcome burden to Levi. An invitation to a person’s home is quite different as invitation to their personal space. And it is definitely different from an invitation to someone’s life. Erwin knows he’s only been welcomed to Levi’s apartment, his neat bathroom, his tiny creaking couch. Yet, he wants to stay for all the other things he could be welcomed into.

Erwin wants companionship even one like this that has him wondering why he can smell Levi’s citrus lotion above the scent of the blood that pulses under it.

Loneliness is easy to live with, Erwin reminds himself. He has all the time to find distractions. Because companionship, for vampires, is a skittish, lovely, and dangerous creature. He thinks back to all the pale, delicate ankles he’s held this way in the beginning. Parisian women, young dreamers of New York, strong secret lovers from across the decades. All lonely and all willing to give him the comfort he craved and more. In blood and flesh and life. He thinks back to all the ankles he’s washed with immortal tears and shrouded with grief.

Erwin is lonely but to ask for Levi’s invitation into the space underneath his lemon scent, under his pale skin, under his flesh is selfish because eternity for Erwin is never enough. It’s never enough for the Parisian women. It might not be enough for Levi and Erwin does not want to be responsible for that moment—always a disappointing one—when he realizes that.

“Sorry,” Levi finally says, slowly pulling his feet from Erwin’s lap. Instead, he tucks his feet against Erwin’s thighs, cloaked with the blanket as he turns to his side for a better view of the TV. The blond makes a move to sit further away, to give Levi more space, to not let himself to places he’s not invited to. But Levi gives him a cautious and confused side glance that roots him to his familiar spot. Levi's voice is restrained, too quiet for Erwin to discern the tone. “You don’t have to. You’re good there.”

And Erwin thinks he is, in this way at least. A vampire without an invitation to places he shouldn’t be invited to. Both of them are good this way even if all Erwin wants to do is place his hand on Levi’s ankle.


	5. Ordinary Men

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Living forever is overrated,” Erwin says softly. “It’s only as grand as the novelty that comes with it. After a while, it’s simply more time and more fond memories than you hope to have.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, look an update. Thank you for your patience. Your kudos and comments make my day.
> 
> As always, thanks [ephieshine](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ephieshine).

Erwin is a masterpiece in a suit.

Powerful without effort, charming without guile. The clean lines of his dark jacket fall gracefully into the line of his navy tie, contrasted against a stark white shirt. He moves so elegantly that Levi imagines him as a mannequin walking right off those well-lit shop windows along Michigan Avenue. He is conventionally handsome with cheekbones and a jawline modeled after marble men. Or maybe it’s the other way around, Levi muses. He carries himself with an old, easy charisma that's difficult to understand without knowing how it could have come about. Erwin walks into a room and all eyes are on him, hungry to take what they can.

Except Levi. It doesn’t take much for him to look away because he finds the other side of Erwin much more fascinating.

It's the eyes. Always the eyes. Levi often stares into them when Erwin takes a bloodied drink, too enticed by the secret Erwin shares with him to feel embarrassed. He watches the blues drown in black, even before the glass touches his lips, the corners of Erwin's perfect face twisting into something beastly for a second. He is unconventional with death in his eyes and fangs in his mouth. His throat bobs less elegantly, thirsty and greedy. Erwin is a monster of secrets, untouchable to Levi.

He doesn't realize he's been staring until Erwin looks his way from the across the room and smiles at him before excusing himself from the bride and groom, both blushing under Erwin’s charms and attention. But the smile is practiced, and there’s something somber behind it that registers with Levi alone.

He first notices it when Erwin finds the invitation fallen out of Levi’s bag. Erwin skimmed over the kraft card, with the watercolor-painted vines of flowers and the couple’s names flourished in gold ink. He smiled when Levi said he could come if he wanted. He had a plus one. But Erwin didn’t glow when his lips curled.

It’s there when they all rise to watch a wonderfully radiant bride, petite with fiery hair, walking down the aisle to a nervous but equally happy man. Levi can’t keep his eyes on the couple at the altar because Erwin is watching with that thoughtful expression, face completely straight except for the corners of his lips slightly upturned. His mind is elsewhere.

Levi puts a hand on Erwin’s broad shoulder, despite the awkwardness of it, when they watch the couple’s first dance. He doesn’t expect the tightness of Erwin’s shoulder, muscles winding tightly around unspoken hesitations. He asks if he’s feeling all right. Erwin gives him that same smile, polite behind some untouchable thought, and says that he is quite all right.

He doesn’t ask anymore because Erwin, for the first time since he invited him to his apartment, doesn’t look willing to share.

"Your friends are lovely," Erwin takes the seat next to Levi. He plucks a macaron from the plate of desserts in the middle of their now empty table and watches couples take the dance floor again. Erwin, for a moment, is wistful and Levi looks on.

"Nile isn't my friend," Levi corrects, taking one of the macarons. "He's my boss. They looked like they were about to adopt you over there though.”

Erwin chuckles. "They invited me to have dinner with them when they return from their honeymoon."

Levi sometimes enjoys the way Erwin speaks. It’s no surprise that Nile and Marie take him so eagerly into their lives. It’s part of his charm--he feels like he comes from a time when parents didn’t insist their children be home by dark. He’s safe, polite, great company. His choice of words are too refined for the day and age, somewhat of a novelty, just like the way he carries himself. Dignified and distant.

Erwin is a character from the past, like a museum piece bathed in bright lights, caged in glass walls.

Untouchable. That’s what Levi still doesn’t understand. There is a reason for Erwin’s sudden distance despite his continued openness, a reason why the blues of his eyes never seem clear enough despite how many secrets he shares. Erwin tells his stories without worry, so clearly that Levi could piece together which belonged to which arc in his lifetime, like episodes of a long running show.

But he still doesn’t understand why Erwin sometimes loses his glow from nostalgia and loses the thread of his story when he mentions certain things like “we” or “our” and he catches himself with one of those smiles, almost imperceptibly pursed. Like he said too much. Levi doesn’t ask because Erwin never says anything but he wonders if the man would one day tell "their" story and when it stopped being whatever “they” were when he pulled his ankle from Erwin’s hands.

Erwin had stopped coming to his apartment then. They still have coffee on Mondays, movies on Saturdays, and Erwin still stops by his office after work to walk with him to the L station. Levi knows, rationally, that should be all right. They are friends. There is a relationship there but no commitment. Levi knows he shouldn't feel as wounded as he does. Yet he wants to tell Erwin he’s still invited to his home even if the invitation was never taken back. He’s only invited so few into his life, unable to find energy for more than a few connections at a time, and Erwin’s distance leaves him feeling foolish.

_God, it was just a foot._

Levi absently flicks off the pastel-colored crumbs littered in the creases of Erwin’s sleeve. Erwin hums in thanks around a half bitten pastry and Levi hopes his face doesn't look as hot as it feels. They share the moment, familiar and friendly,  and at the same time, remember that night on the couch, Levi's ankle in Erwin's hand. Levi pulling away. There's embarrassment. A bit of shame. A smidge of regret on Levi's part. He looks away, shoulders curving forward as he folds his arms over his chest.

They were both lonely and then they weren't. Levi regrets pulling his ankle away because loneliness comes back and bites harder, salivating with awkwardness, when Erwin sits right next to him and yet feels like he’s far, far away.

"Thank you for inviting me," Erwin breaks their first awkward lull.

"Thanks for coming," Levi shrugs before the second awkward lull.

Erwin keeps eating the macaron. Levi leans on the table and sips on his champagne. Both of them watch Marie float from one guest to another, Nile happily at her heels. Levi never sees himself in their shoes. He doesn’t believe in things lasting forever, or until death. Idly, he wonders what it’s like for vampires when death is not a factor in the equation.

"Ever been married?"

Erwin swallows, slowly. Hesitation builds in the slight crease between his brows. He looks straight ahead. Another wave of regret swallows Levi. He’s touched something he wasn’t supposed to, beyond a boundary he didn’t realize existed before.

 "I was. Once." Erwin explains and his gaze follows Nile and Marie taking their seats. Marie laughs into her hand, wrapped in Nile’s proud arm. “Before I turned. She was a lovely young woman, beautiful. Had good wits on her, too.”

  _Fuck_. Erwin had been married. To a woman. Imaginary chances slowly thinning, Levi deflates despite himself.

 Levi had long resigned to the fact the Erwin is attractive. Too attractive sometimes that he can’t help but admire their reflection on store windows they pass by, hoping Erwin will never catch his eyes lingering there. But he also had long resigned to the fact that he is incredibly human and Erwin is made of people’s fantasies and his own personal fascination. So he stays well within the platonic and doesn’t dare step a toe into the realm of romantic, as tempting as it is.

 And that’s okay. Erwin is a pretty good friend. That is, if he still considered himself so.

 Erwin tells him his wife had been chosen by his father and he was happy for it. They shared a quiet marriage and he loved her dearly. She died in childbirth, right before he was turned. He left their daughter to his wife’s parents while he sorted his newfound life and learned to manage his thirst for human blood. By the time he knew how to live as a vampire, his daughter would have been too old to need a father. He never came back for her, can never come back for her now.

He could have loved her, he says, but he’s loved so many others in so many ways and he had learned a person can find who they are without love to guide them.

The way Erwin pauses, thoughtful, makes Levi uncomfortable. “Love is too fickle to guide anyone.”

They fall into another lull. Instead of conversation they watch the guests and the beautiful bride tucked in the arms of her new husband.

"Dance with me, Levi," Erwin says with a hint of apology in his tone. "I'm being a terrible date."

“Plus one,” Levi corrects. Erwin pleads softly, brows raised and knotted just right, smirk perfectly choreographed. He thinks Erwin might be reaching out from his distance so, reluctantly, he takes Erwin’s outstretched hand.

It takes an effort for Levi to not succumb to some imaginary spotlight and believe everyone is looking at them. Two men dancing. It’s not a big deal, Levi tells himself. When he does catch some of the guests watching, he convinces himself they’re not looking at them. They’re looking at Erwin, basking in his presence and unshakable confidence when he slides his arm under Levi's and waits for Levi to rest a hand on his arm.

“It’s overrated,” Levi mumbles, trying to distract himself from how close he is to Erwin. Always the gentleman, Erwin places a hand politely on his back and sways him with a courteous space between them to a song far too upbeat to be dancing so slow to. His hand feels small in Erwin’s. Warm. Clammy.

When the vampire doesn’t respond, he looks up. Two thick blond brows furrowed in question. “The concept of love, I mean. What are the chances you could love someone forever? I can’t even stand you for more than a few hours.”

And _that_ brings Erwin back from his thoughts and whatever darkness they kept for him. Back to Levi who smirks in welcome.

“I wouldn’t know about that,” Erwin says, a little more relaxed. “Who knows? Perhaps there is that one great love that would stand time, if given the chance.”

It’s awful and romantic, Levi thinks. He wonders if vampires are always so sad.

“I've certainly never encountered it or maybe I missed it.”

There’s an age in Erwin’s words that reminds him Erwin is not an ordinary man. Ordinary men don’t speak of great loves with defeated longing. Nor do they dance so well.

"My one great love may have died a long time ago and I wouldn’t have known." 

"Or hasn't been born yet," Levi adds in an effort to comfort. Erwin thanks him with a glowing gaze that he quickly pulls back into a wide grin. Too friendly. Forced. Levi doesn’t understand and he doesn’t know what to do.

But Erwin does. He’s done this plenty of times of before. He’s danced these steps and he knows how to lead. So when Levi loses his step, he picks it up. All Levi has to do is follow.

“Living forever is overrated,” Erwin says softly. “It’s only as grand as the novelty that comes with it. After a while, it’s simply more time and more fond memories than you hope to have.”

Erwin’s hand on Levi’s back is pressed fully on his coat, but holds back from melting into him. He follows Erwin’s steps, he doesn’t listen to the music. He doesn’t look around to the other people, the other eyes on them.

“The beauty of this is the choice of dying in your own terms,” Erwin continues. He takes in a deep breath. The words roll out like an old lullaby, albeit a little uneasy. “When you’re ready, when you’ve had enough time, enough of whatever you lived for. Sometimes that’s…companionship.”

Then it makes sense.

Levi understands that this is Erwin telling another story. Perhaps, many stories that ended the same. He doesn’t need to ask because this is a conversation where he can follow him, step by step, to the distance he recedes to. The whisper of abandonment that fills Erwin's pause twists something inside Levi.

“I’d like to think that, for others, that could be the better choice.”

As careful as Erwin’s words are, Levi understands that vampires long for the same things humans do. Love. Belonging. The promise of companionship. They didn't want to be alone. They are all gods of their lives, eternal or not, aching for fleeting, lovely things. Levi regrets bringing Erwin to the wedding, to watch people promise each other forever, to learn that Erwin was promised the same. Perhaps many times over. Yet he’s alone now.

“I’m a terrible date,” Erwin chuckles, more to himself. “My apologies--plus one, I mean.”

Levi shakes his head and thanks Erwin for the dance. They step away from each other with a nod and Levi watches him blend with the ordinary men on the floor.

Levi wonders if Erwin thinks of his little girl when the flower girls in baby pink dresses come up to him and ask him to dance. When Erwin takes a tiny flower girl in his arms and sways her until she giggles, high and young, Levi knows Erwin can never blend in with ordinary men.

At the end of the evening, Nile and Marie thank them for coming, reminding Erwin of their dinner invitation. They share a cab where Erwin drinks greedily from a small flask of blood he keeps in his coat. Even if against the darkness of the evening, Erwin's eyes shine a more vivid black even as he unscrews the flask's cap.

He apologizes for the evening and says again he feels he was a terrible date. This time, Levi doesn’t correct him.

“You’re good, I had fun,” then he pauses, angling his head towards his door. “You...wanna finish that show we were watching?”

Erwin shakes his head and Levi aches.

He keeps his eyes down as he fishes for the keys in his pocket, holding his brows in neutral. Disappointment does not have a place between them. They’re friends; there is only so much he can expect.

The hand that cups his cheek certainly isn't one of those. Levi looks up, wide-eyed, to Erwin who sweeps a soft thumb across the seam of his skin and lip. He looks down to him. There's a hesitant, misplaced longing Levi knows he somehow placed there.

They’re friends, Levi finally decides. If he asked to be turned, there wouldn’t be a choice between love and death. One choice wouldn’t be there and the other is only optional if he were a vampire, too. Maybe Erwin would stop smiling like this, would stop being so sad. Levi understands solitude; he embraces it. Erwin doesn’t seem to. He could teach him how. Or maybe, neither of them would have to.

Erwin. No. _Companionship_  could be the better choice.

“Tomorrow, I promise,” Erwin places a quick, chaste kiss on his cheek, closing the distance between them. It was a necessary distance after all; to teach Levi that Erwin is on the same page. It sparks relief in Levi, overshadowing the tickle of Erwin's lips dry against his cheek. Everything seems okay again.

“Let me know what food you’d like me to bring.”

Erwin is gone by the time Levi remembers his keys are still in his pocket. When he turns the light on in his small bathroom, he's startled by his reflection. A trail of blood from his nose is smeared above his lip, almost dried and sticky. He finally notices the metallic taste at the back of his throat. But Erwin’s eyes were clear as the coming spring, without a drop of black.

Again, there are things he doesn't understand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written to [What Kind of Man - Florence + The Machine](http://youtu.be/XgeKHTcufLY)


	6. Silent Witnesses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Perhaps Levi's mother had been wrong to worry that he would end up alone or lonely. He didn't yearn for company or experience the same way Erwin seems to. He wonders if vampires are always so voracious for life then someday tire of it and choose their end, just like Erwin said. Would Erwin one day fade into the background as a silent witness to the world until he chooses his own death?

Erwin remembers Levi as a little boy with large gray eyes following him as goes about his business of checking his heartbeat, listening for strange sounds in his lungs, looking inside his ears. Even then there had been that crease between his dark brows, lips straight and even.

"How long have you been a doctor of kids?" Levi asks then, a mere child of four years and eight months.

"A very long time," Erwin smiles as he swabs the tiny arm with alcohol. It's a common question. For parents, that is.

The boy follows him again with a sharpening gaze like he has ten years on Erwin. He scrutinizes without malice. But there's caution there and Erwin remembers wondering if the boy knew his secret. Silly but not entirely impossible with the way Levi narrows his eyes at the doctor.

"This will hurt for a bit, Levi," Erwin says. "But only for a moment. Then it will be better. Would you like me to count down to it?"

Tiny brows knit together as Levi quickly assesses his options before shaking his head. The dark fringe falls a bit on his forehead. When Erwin sinks the needle into his arm and pushes on the syringe, Levi pinches his lips together, eyes glassy, shoulder torn between staying in place and pulling away. The shot is thicker than most vaccines and hurts even for adults. Erwin is impressed that Levi, unlike most patients, does not cry.

"Not too bad?" Erwin asks, placing a cotton ball and a Batman Band-Aid on the puncture.

"You're not very good at this," Levi says, voice wet and weak. His mother gives him a disapproving look that he ignores as he jumps off the examination table. He shoots the doctor another scowl and tip toes to reach the door knob, walking out without waiting for his mother.

"I'm so sorry about that, Dr. Collins," his mother sighs, gathering Levi's little jacket and shoes. She's young with hair dark as Levi's and soft lines under her eyes and around her mouth. But she glowed with the strength to carry her son and the rest of their lives on her back. "He doesn't usually talk like that. Actually, he doesn't usually talk much."

Erwin assures her there is nothing to apologize for. The truth is Levi is one of the better behaved children he attends to. There is something heavy in her voice so he waits for her to continue.

"He's such a quiet boy, always keeps to himself. And then he talks like that and the other kids, they..." she trails off, worried and fond at the same time. "Oh I don't know, I just don't want him to be alone all the time, you know?"

Erwin gets the feeling she isn't just talking about her boy. Loneliness, after all, is everyone's burden. And he thinks that it won't be Levi's. The way the boy watched him, judged him, is somehow reassuring.

"Your boy will be fine," Erwin says and he believes it. "He's observant, that's all. He'll find himself very good friends for that."

He wonders now if Levi ever did find good friends with that hard even line between his brows and between the seams of his lips.

* * *

 

Levi, now a fully grown man, winces at Erwin’s arm shoved elbow deep in sting ray-infested waters.

“That’s disgusting as fuck,” he spits quietly, earning himself a disapproving look from a man holding his toddler over the water.

Erwin chuckles and returns the stranger’s look with an apologetic one.

With spring very slowly warming up the city, Erwin suggested that they spend their Saturday doing something else other than watching re-runs in Levi’s apartment. The city looks more yellow than gray in the afternoons and Erwin yearns to stretch his legs over the crowded sidewalks and see the waters shining blue instead of gray. Chicago had never looked so enticing in all the years he’s lived there. It’s nothing more or less remarkable than all the other cities he’s lived in; they all blur into the same concrete and glass jungles and this isn't the first time he's live in this place, either. Erwin never finds the need to revisit the old.

Yet this spring, Erwin feels restless. What he told Levi at the wedding still rings true: he has more memories than he really wants. But for a reason he doesn’t want to admit yet, he doesn’t mind making more.

Levi does. He minds very much. “It’s still too cold, you freak. Unlike you, my balls can still freeze off in this weather,” he tells Erwin.

Levi vetoed every suggestion he had, including a visit to the Shedd Aquarium. It would have been a good option, Levi admits. He likes museums and such where all he has to do is walk around and look at things but the weekend promises throngs of people and children. Levi already looks uncomfortable at the suggestion. But decades of experience taught Erwin how to work around even the most hesitant and stubborn. Negotiation is powerful in every decade. A little bribery never hurt anyone.

“If you come to the aquarium with me, I will never put my feet up on your lovely coffee table again,” Erwin offers. Levi agrees so quickly he finds himself regretting it even quicker beside the sting ray exhibit a week later with Erwin elbow deep in aquarium water.

Levi counts at least 24 children with their hands in the water of the large shallow pool set up in a tent right outside the aquarium and about the same number of sting rays most likely shitting in the water, too. He finds the hand sanitizing stations laughable.

“You know you’re the only one above the age of 5 here, right?” Levi sighs, leaning on his forearms on the low wall of the pool. He squeezes in between Erwin and the man with the toddler.

“Of course not, that gentleman over there is about as old as you,” Erwin nods towards an elderly man across the pool, holding the hand of a little girl who is about ready to dive into the pool.

“Haha, very funny,” Levi rolls his eyes. He turns over and sits on the wall. “Seriously, that’s disgusting, Erwin.”

Part of Erwin still wonders if Levi’s coldness is an expression of dissatisfaction like it was when he poked Levi in the arm with a syringe. Or maybe it’s a general coldness towards people. Perhaps Levi’s mother had been right in her worries.

“Do you dislike people?”

“What?” Levi blinks at him.

“I just ask because you seem uneasy in crowds,” Erwin says, not putting much pressure on the question. He is generous in extending the same courtesy Levi gives him when he’s hesitant in his own questions.

Levi crosses his arms. “They’re okay. I guess.”

Erwin doesn’t ask anymore when Levi’s shoulders hunch and he looks away. Instead he goes back to the pool, chilly and somewhat thick. He thinks back to Levi while they were at the jellyfish exhibit a while ago, a dark simple labyrinth of lit glass walls of jellies with long wispy tentacles. It was by far the least crowded area they’ve been in all day. It was the only time he noticed Levi unfold his arms and watch the jellyfish; his pale face lit purple and pink, lips slightly parted.

The jellyfish weren’t particularly exciting but there was something undeniably soothing watching them float about, without direction, without action. They were just there, beautifully strange, probably observing the humans on the other side of the glass. He wonders if they thought Levi fascinating, too.

“Your mother worried about you," Erwin says. When Levi raises a brow at him he continues. “She said she didn’t want you to grow up lonely. Not that you've grown much.”

“It was fine,” Levi swats him on the shoulder then leans back on the ledge of the pool wall. “I’m no good with people since I was small anyway. Besides, it’s not so bad to just watch.”

“Even now? You’re not _that_ small anymore,” Erwin smirks.

“Would you knock it off with the small jokes? I’m huge where it matters.”

Erwin laughs all the way from his belly and doesn’t see the stranger with the toddler looking at Levi with disgust and ushering his boy away. Levi certainly isn’t the first person to deliver his humor dry and crass, but Erwin doesn’t tire of Levi’s straight face while he speaks and the slight curl of his lip before he rolls his eyes. Levi turns to watch a few stingrays swim lazily towards Erwin’s fingers as he takes up the newly vacated space along the wall. The space between them is comfortable but Erwin misses Levi’s warmth against him.

“It’s easier to read people when you just observe.”

And it clicks.

“And how do you read me?” Erwin asks.

“I don’t know,” Levi lies. He knows, just not the exact words for it. “For someone who’ll outlive everyone, you seem really, what’s the word? Attached.”

“You say that as if attachment is unpleasant.”

“That’s what you made it sound like.”

The sadness in Erwin’s eyes while they danced at the wedding is burned in Levi’s memory. He doesn’t understand abandonment the way Erwin does, never having experienced it himself, and he doesn’t ever want to. That makes it easier to appreciate the solitude and witnessing the world go by. Levi couldn't care less if that meant he wasn't living life to the fullest just as Erwin has been for so long. It's a fair price for never having stories that make him recede to dark memories like Erwin. He's just as content watching others make memories as he is making his own. If not more.

Though, maybe, he finds making memories with Erwin just a bit more satisfying.

“I suppose you’re right,” Erwin pulls his hand out of the water.

Levi dreads the silence that follows. It's thoughtful but Erwin doesn't seem offended. So he adds, "Like I said, it's not bad to just watch. Every once in a while."

Levi watches the rays float around, leaning just a little bit more into the pool. Perhaps Levi's mother had been wrong to worry that he would end up alone or lonely. He didn't yearn for company or experience the same way Erwin seems to. He wonders if vampires are always so voracious for life then someday tire of it and choose their end, just like Erwin said. Would Erwin one day fade into the background as a silent witness to the world until he chooses his own death?

Unlikely, Levi thinks. People gather around Erwin like he’s the sun that brings spring. He will always be witnessed. Watched. Just like Levi does. Erwin is too bright to be silent. He’s not meant to watch from the sides. 

“Perhaps I will. I could learn a thing or two from you,” Erwin agrees. Then a thick blond brow rises, his lips stretching into a grin. Levi senses the bait even before Erwin sets it. “ _If_ you touch one of these delightful things.”

Levi is a bit scandalized.

“Reach in, Levi,” Erwin coaxes softly. They both eye the large ray swimming towards them and Levi gingerly reaches in, elbow deep, just in time for his fingers to meet the smooth, slick surface of the ray’s back.

Levi leans a little closer to Erwin, reaching after the ray swimming away. He abandons all worry of bacteria crawling on his arm, of watching the world from the sides, of one day possibly being left behind now that he feels there is someone to abandon him. He understands Erwin a little better, the hesitation that sometimes builds between them, as the surge of electricity and excitement travels from his fingertips to his spine. He _could_ live a little. Even if he could lose a lot.

And Erwin marvels at Levi like a child marvels at jellyfish. Levi’s shoulders finally relax, he notices, and catches the way Levi’s eyes widen in the way he’s never seen when Levi was a little boy. Or when he was grown, with soft lines forming around his mouth. He could watch a little.

He could watch a lot.

“That’s so fucking slimy,” Levi whispers, too awed to pretend disgust.

“It’s not so bad,” Erwin smiles.


	7. Slowly, Then All at Once

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For Erwin, it happens all at once and he startles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Captured - Bic Runga](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJjPt3kRkRE%0A)
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> art by [35grams](http://35grams.tumblr.com/)

Eventually, they understand each other.

For Levi, it happens slowly and it starts on a Monday.

Erwin watches him, fond and attentive as if he is a lost wonder rediscovered. He feels exposed, admired even, in the way a pair of blue eyes follows him around in reflections on subway windows on their way to dinner. Spring was filled with a lot of weeknight dinners. Erwin seemed eager to find a new hole in the wall to visit every other day and Levi found nothing better to do. Before long, Levi came to expect Erwin texting him in the middle of the afternoon, convincing him to join the vampire in yet another quest for food or entertainment in the city. It never takes much convincing.

"What?"

Erwin's brows shoot up, amused.

"Quit staring."

He meets Erwin’s gaze on their reflection as the train jostles them softly in their seats. Even against the concrete background of the subway tunnels, Erwin is radiant with golden hair and spring blue eyes. He narrows his gaze at Erwin’s reflection until the other looks away chuckling.

"I wasn't staring," Erwin explains, smiling. "I was watching."

"Oh yeah. That’s so much less creepy," Levi scoffs.

"I'm surprised you haven't fallen asleep yet. You're usually snoring by this time." He was right. Levi usually naps in trains and it had been a tiring day at work.

"And you watch me then, too, I bet. Fucking creep."

"Isn't that what vampires do? The younger ones, that is."

At that, he turns to Erwin grinning at him. 

It takes a moment for Levi to realize what Erwin means, and it must have shown up on his face because Erwin is laughing. He tries to ignore how pleasant that sounds—the unbridled laughter of a man who laughs in perfectly composed notes when he speaks to other people. But not with Levi.

There is no way to call out Erwin without also admitting that he knows exactly which vampire movie Erwin takes the reference from so he just rolls his eyes.

"We are no longer friends." And yet they follow each other around like spring to the winter and fall to the summer.

He feels exposed as Erwin slowly learns to spot his tells and yet part of him blooms at the attention. It comes steadily, expected. Welcome even, much to Levi’s astonishment.

They’re small things that aren’t worth the attention, but Erwin still takes particular interest in. Thinned lips for annoyance. A cocked brow for disbelief. Crossed arms for an unconscious request for silence. Levi’s usual lack of words sends thoughts and anxieties buzzing through his head, like trapped little demons, and he sometimes needs a moment to center himself. He never tells Erwin any of this, but he picks up on that too and gives Levi a moment or two of complete and companionable silence.

Erwin even catches the incessant bouncing of his knee when he's sitting in cramped, crowded spaces. He never notices it himself. He does notice one afternoon, though. Rather, he catches it when Erwin lays a hand on his knee.

He tenses, but his knee does stop bouncing.

“Levi, would you like to leave?” Erwin asks.

They’re sharing a snack in another nondescript diner in Greektown. It’s filled with college students attending summer school and some locals, all lured out of their apartments by the forecast of a balmy day. Within the hour, the sun disappears behind a threatening bloom of clouds that doesn’t look like it will let up. Even Levi is disappointed because as much as he avoids the crowds that warmth brings out, he’s starved for sun after a chilly and gray spring.

Erwin doesn’t ask if he’s okay. He already knows Levi is quick to tire just from the company of too many strangers. And he doesn’t try to offer comfort either; he just observes and acts with the wisdom of someone who knows how people work. He genuinely suggests a change of scenery, as if Levi would be doing _him_ a favor. It’s thoughtful, Levi thinks.

He eventually nods.

“My apologies,” Erwin mutters, realizing his hand is still firmly on Levi’s knee and pulls away. Levi does relax at that, but notes the absence of Erwin’s hand weighs heavier than its presence.

“You’re good,” Levi mutters back. He doesn’t meet Erwin’s eyes but sees the man tilt his head to the side. “What?”

Erwin looks at him curiously, fondly even, like he just said something in a different language.

“Nothing,” he smiles. “My home is closer. Would you like to go there instead?”

Levi feels like he should ask Erwin something about his home but something catches his eyes, something he keeps catching in his peripherals and now stares him in the face. It’s that rueful smile again: the charming disguise for hesitation. It pisses him off and slowly he begins to understand why.

Erwin, Levi realizes, is defined by his solitude, almost in the way he defines himself with it. But for the other, it's inescapable, anchored to the gift of time. He withers with it. Levi still catches it sometimes, like a trick of the light: a long loneliness that leaves Erwin tired and desperate for anything to hold on to, fleeting as they may be. Attachment and abandonment are suddenly necessary burdens.

Levi finds the thought unsettling. It makes him feel too mortal. And inadequate.

He finds himself gaping when he steps into Erwin’s apartment, a second-story loft tucked between mismatched brick buildings deep inside West Loop. They hadwalked a few blocks in the drizzle and Erwin had commented that it’s rather nice, he doesn’t have curtains in his home so some shade is comfortable this early in the afternoon.

Levi immediately scolds him for even suggesting curtains as he admires the massive windows surrounding Erwin’s spacious apartment. He toes his shoes off by the door, pushes them into the  corner, and lets the exposed ceiling, the brick walls and shiny but worn hardwood floors beckon him in. He hears Erwin click the door shut behind him.

“Please make yourself at home,” Erwin says, the smile so big Levi could hear it.

Oddly enough, Erwin’s home is emptier than Levi expected from someone who grew attached to things so easily. Aside from a bookshelf of medical texts, there’s not much personal effects in the space. There are some plants lined up by a window, five different medical diplomas (Levi laughs quietly, noticing one of them is in the name James Collins). He turns to comment on it, only to find Erwin approaching him.

A hand lands on his shoulder. He blinks.

“How about a tour?”

Levi nods and Erwin leads him by the shoulder to an equally spacious kitchen. Levi doesn’t hesitate to examine the contents of Erwin’s fridge, privacy seems trivial to them now, and doesn’t blink when he finds it half-filled with blood bags.

“Christ, Erwin. They let you take these home?” Levi says.

“Ah, I have a friend who helps me with those,” Erwin hesitates around the word “friend.”

“I’m surprised there’s someone else who can tolerate you,” Levi teases. He decides he’ll ask about this friend another time because he notices Erwin a little uneasy, stiff. It makes him feel uneasy himself, but also daring. Erwin shows him his bedroom next. It’s so neat and empty that it looks almost like a hospital room.

“Hey, can I take a shit?” Levi finally says.

“I thought you’d never ask,” Erwin chuckles at Levi’s deadpan. He shows Levi the door to the bathroom and makes his way to the kitchen to make them tea.

“ _Holy shit_.”

Erwin walks over quickly to the bathroom where Levi stands frozen.

“How the fuck did you get this up here?”

Erwin watches Levi approach the white porcelain claw-footed tub at the far wall of his bathroom. It really is quite a beauty and Erwin bought the loft mostly for it as it reminded him of overlooked luxuries like having a beautiful piece of porcelain to soak in. The light from the small window catches on the smoky silver faucets and shower head, the claw feet resembling the ornate paws of a large cat.

Levi walks over to it and traces his fingers on the lip of the tub with such reverence that Erwin wonders if he’s having a religious experience.

“It came with the place,” he says. “You’re welcome to use it.”

At that, Levi whips around and Erwin’s breath is caught in his throat at the way Levi lights up. “You’re serious?”

Erwin grins, how could he say no to that? “Consider it payment for letting me invade your couch all the time.”

Levi bites the inside of his cheek, a little embarrassed that he’s actually considering it. “Maybe next time. Go away now, I still have to take that shit.”

Erwin leaves to make tea and a few moments later Levi finds him on his couch, browsing through channels. In all his life, he’s never had so many choices for entertainment right at his fingertips and not want to watch anything.

“Would you like to watch the next season of that show? I have it recorded,” Erwin offers.

“Of course you have it DVR’d, you loser,” Levi plops down on the couch. It’s a much larger leather sectional than Levi’s tiny sleeper couch but Levi takes a spot close to Erwin like he’s staked a claim on it for years.

“The blu-ray isn’t out yet.”

“God, stop. You’re embarrassing.” Levi smiles, wide and creasing around his mouth.

For the first time since Erwin moved to the loft, it feels lived in.

* * *

Weeks later, Erwin wakes up to the looped credits on the DVD he had ended up getting. It made Levi laugh loudly in an almost unattractive way.

Levi isn’t particularly striking really, not in the way Erwin’s past companions have been: picturesque and plump, dainty and with pleasant personalities. Levi is short with a hard militant haircut and a harder façade that reminds him of young soldiers in wars, molded into stiff figures for the rest of their short lives. He is far from dainty, but not quite strong either. He is young, as all humans are, but not new. He’s been broken quietly and pieced back together without occasion. But Levi has moments of warmth when he doesn’t watch the world so sharply and just lets himself exist. Somehow it makes the times he shows warmth all the more fascinating.

He reminds of Erwin of the early spring, shrouded in gray with peaks of promised sunshine.

Erwin makes to get up and turn the television off when he finds himself back to where they began: Levi’s ankle gently cradled in his hands.

He watches Levi bundled in blankets he vaguely remembers getting for him, snoring soundly and deeply. Levi has been right about him. His heart does indeed swell with fondness too easily, fluttering in his chest with familiar anxiety.

Likely, Levi will be a blink of the eye in his eternal existence, another chip in his heart. And eternity has left him with so little to break. While there is not much that surprises him anymore—a long lifetime of witnessing the bizarre and the mundane does that to a man—Erwin is surprised he is left with enough to give but enough to also know better as he looks down on the pale, bony ankle.

He turns to see Levi watching him, still sleepy but unnervingly alert and expectant.

They wait for each other and, aside from a slow blink, Levi doesn’t move.

“What time is it?”

“Early. Go back to sleep.” Erwin pats his ankle softly before letting himself wrap a hand around it. He kneads the flesh and feels privileged at the stillness and heat of it. For a moment, he doesn’t feel centuries old.

Then the old guilt of the past rises slowly and leisurely in his mind and takes on the face of the pale, dark-haired man with eyes as gray as the winter he came from.

For Erwin, it happens all at once and he startles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you [NevermindBye](http://archiveofourown.org/users/NevermindBye%0A) and [Misaya](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Misaya/)!


	8. Foolish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Because Levi, in the face of immortality and being 35, realizes he doesn’t have time to pretend he’s content with just watching anymore. He’ll have time later when he’s old and senile and that’s all he can do. But now, he lets himself want more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, [ephieshine](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ephieshine/profile)!

“Here, shithead.”

Erwin finds himself face-to-face with a cup of tea held in a curious claw-grasp. He looks up to Levi holding him in a hard gaze, one half irritated and the other half concerned.

Erwin wonders how long he’s been staring blankly at the television while Levi scowls in worry. He can’t remember the last time someone worried about him. He doesn’t get sick. He doesn’t die. It’s unnecessary and makes it difficult for him to think.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Erwin takes the cup. “Thank you, Levi.”

Levi grunts in return as he takes his spot on Erwin’s couch and puts his feet on Erwin’s lap without much notice.

Levi had begun inviting himself over to Erwin’s apartment on the weekends they hadn’t spent at his place. Soon weekends had turned into weeknights and Erwin isn’t sure when they started making dinner together in his kitchen.

It’s not until Erwin is in the middle a Trader Joe’s aisle with Levi’s preferred tiramisu on hand that he realizes he can’t remember the last time he had a proper meal alone. In that moment, dread creeps into his chest.

“You didn’t give me tea,” Erwin says, his face twisted in its beastly form, eyes completely black. He licks his lips, coating them with thick, rich carmine blood. Levi must have emptied half a bag of it in his drink.

Levi, always ready, hands him a paper napkin. “Yeah. Maybe that’ll stop your brain from turning into complete shit.” He gives Erwin that look again, half-irritated and half-concerned. “What’s up with you lately? Finally turning into an old geezer?”

No. He feels young and eager. He knows it is unwise to be either.

There are things Erwin knows, things carved into his heart by time. He knows it’s fruitless to grow attached to mortals who wither in old age or illness. He knows the consequences of turning a mortal into a vampire who will wander the world at his side many times over until they grow tired of history repeating itself and grow sad at the loss of the novelty of it all. He knows this gift is wonderful as it is cruel. He knows the sorrow of being responsible for that dimming light in their soul as the world dies and is reborn around them while they stay dead and yet living at the same time.

He has decided long ago that he will not turn another. He will not have another body buried in his conscience.

Yet Levi, sullen and keen, makes him forget. The comfort comes in moments like these and washes over him, washes away the burden of his age and the mask that hides everything he knows and _needs_ to remember. It cleanses him be he can’t let it because if Levi asked to be turned, Erwin knows he will not—cannot—refuse.

And he can’t figure out why. What is about Levi who watches quietly that makes Erwin feel optimistic?

“I just have a lot of things in my mind,” Erwin confesses then says nothing more.

The silence coats his insides like blood. Levi’s foot on his lap weighs heavier at each passing second and he doesn’t know what to do with his hands. He wraps them both around his cold cup and looks straight into the puddle of liquid at its bottom.

“Erwin,” Levi starts, seemingly unprepared to start this conversation. “Is this weird for you?”

“That you’re here?” Erwin clarifies. It’s a useless distraction but it buys him some time to react to the guilt in Levi’s voice. Despite the voice of reason in his head, he wants so much for Levi—from Levi—but guilt is not one of them.

“Yeah. Watching your TV, using your tub,” Levi pauses. “You kissing me.”

It had gone unspoken between them until now.

Neither one saw the point or found the opportunity to talk about it. Neither one really wanted say anything either, afraid to stop or start or slow it down. Ever since Levi had willingly put his ankle in Erwin’s hand, he had knowingly welcomed Erwin into everything else. Not just his apartment. Erwin had followed him in. Quite naturally, to the surprise of both men.

It started off with Erwin touching Levi’s shoulder in thanks for the making them tea. Then a gentle squeeze of Levi’s arm as a goodbye when they parted at the train station. Then, one night at the threshold of Levi’s apartment, Levi handed him a paper bag of leftovers and he leaned down and presseds his lips to Levi’s cheek. He didn’t think about it. It was simply a mix of natural urge to get closer to Levi’s scent, sweet and rich, and the – dare he say _human_ – urge to just be _closer_.

He thought of apologizing, of saying he was out of line, but Levi’s expression didn’t change. He didn’t so much as blink. He simply bid him goodnight and reminded him to scrub his Tupperware well.

“We’re friends.” Erwin hesitates.

He has to look away when Levi’s eyes widen a fraction before darkening under his furrowed brows. There’s hurt between them; hurt Erwin put there. Somewhat willingly.

It’s not that Erwin sees him as a friend; Levi is aware that they are friends. He appreciates that they are. It’s that Erwin can’t even say it without confidence. He’s back to feeling foolish and human in the Erwin’s presence.

Because Levi, in the face of immortality and being 35, realizes he doesn’t have time to pretend he’s content with just watching anymore. He’ll have time later when he’s old and senile and that’s all he can do. But now, he lets himself want more.

 _Reach in, Levi,_ Erwin’s voice echoes in his head. With hesitation, Levi does because he decides that if Erwin had been the sign he asked for, it’s best that he follows where Erwin leads him, whether that’s in his apartment or somewhere he can live beyond the shadows, watching the world like he had for most of his life. He decides to reach in.

Except Levi thinks, this is where Erwin leads him: feeling stupid and complicit to his own vulnerability and with his ankle on Erwin’s lap, all but saying out loud that this is starting to become more familiar than it needs to be, but less tender than he wants it to be. Part of him wants to lunge at Erwin and look him in the eyes, bury his fingers in that golden hair, and—and what exactly?

He’d spent so much time watching that he doesn’t know how to act.

“Awesome,” he says flatly before pulling his ankle from Erwin’s lap.

Because they’re friends and it stings, so he doesn’t say any more. _This won’t last_ , he takes a deep breath. He lets it build like a tide and hopes that it will ebb away in time. Something Erwin has plenty of and he doesn’t. It feels desperate and embarrassing.

 _This won’t last_ , he thinks as he pushes down the regret that comes with the thought.

And it doesn’t.

Levi takes home a stranger later that night with rum and frustration pumping in his blood. The man looks somewhat like Erwin: tall, blond, with a smile far too charming to trust. Levi lets him buy his drinks and nose at his neck at the bar until he forgets why he was so upset. The man kisses his cheek and Levi imagines him as someone else. And for a good twenty minutes on his unfolded sleeper couch, with his face shoved against the cushion that smells like Erwin, he doesn’t feel so desperate.

When he wakes up the next morning, he’s sore and ashamed instead.


	9. Bruises

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erwin’s neck goes rigid – even more so – before he turns partly to the side. “I’m sorry,” he says quietly, intentionally not looking at Levi. “I can smell it more with injuries. Like bruises. It makes it difficult to focus. I didn’t mean to snap at you.”
> 
> Levi freezes. Bruises. Hickies. Erwin can smell it all over him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you [ephieshine](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ephieshine/pseuds/ephieshine) for the amazing editing skills.
> 
> And thank you for reading and supporting this fic. Your kudos and comments make me giddy to no end and keep me motivated. I am grateful :)

He smells it first.

It’s distinctly Levi, like the first rain between winter and spring but sharper and sweeter than usual, radiating from just under his collar. Erwin falls a step behind when they stand in line at Starbucks to distract himself with the scent from the fact that Levi has been colder than usual, arms wound tight across his chest.

He curls his lips over his teeth, willing his fangs to stay put.

When Levi takes his wallet from his pocket, his collar pulls back just a bit, and that’s when Erwin sees it: a small bruise at the junction of his neck and shoulder.

Erwin cocks his head to the side to get a better view of it. It’s definitely a hickey; he can smell the blood clotting at the broken capillaries just underneath the skin, sweet and thick and purplish. His muscles tense, ready to pounce; his vision tunnels and his mind wipes itself clean with all of his jumbled thoughts to flood it with a single goal: to feed.

For vampires, it’s a place of peace where animalistic focus takes hold and relieves them of everything human left in them, of everything unpleasant and uncertain. To feed is to give up to a few long moments of bliss. Erwin despises the loss of control that comes with it but he can’t deny the comfort it brings, untangling his jumbled thoughts in one quick breath.

He lets the control slip until it dawns on him that someone had put that bruise on Levi. _Someone else._

A switch turns on somewhere inside him and thought of feeding on Levi suddenly sickens him.

“Erwin.”

His attention snaps back to Levi’s cold yet unsure glare. It’s the first time Levi has looked at him since their conversation at his apartment over the weekend.

“You ordering or what?” Levi asks evenly, gray eyes wide and unblinking. Erwin shakes his head.

Levi pulls him to the corner of the café after he pays for his drink.

“You’re turning vampire,” Levi says, his lips barely moving. “Right in front of all these people. The fuck is wrong with you?”

Erwin’s attention is back to the bruise on Levi’s skin. The tension in his muscles stays, strength coiled at the ready. He can’t stop himself from inhaling deeply, taking in the faint sticky sweetness coming from just under Levi’s skin. Erwin pictures him flushed and out of breath, head thrown back to offer his neck with a smooth, wide, pale expanse of his skin ready for the taking.

Except it’s already marked.

The hunger dissolves into something violent, darker in his veins. Erwin steadies himself. “I was distracted.”

“By what?”

“ _You_.”

Levi’s lips part slightly, eyes wider, breath trapped in his lungs. He could hear Levi’s heart racing almost as fast as his, pumping blood through the vein that runs down his jugular. Erwin curls his lips over his teeth again before Levi closes his and looks away quickly. Color rises on his cheeks, the scent intensifies and Erwin’s vision blurs.

“Don’t fuck with me,” Levi snarls quietly.

They part ways without a gentle squeeze of Levi’s arm or a chaste kiss on his cheek. Erwin feels too out of control, too tightly wound with mounting hunger to be so close to Levi who keeps looking at him with hurt in his eyes.

He hurries to the bathroom when he gets back to the hospital to empty a stolen vial of blood down his throat. Then another. And another. And another. The blood mellows down the hunger that rises with emotion, but it does nothing for the familiar and unwelcome feeling he dreads more than the guilt of the past.

He is losing Levi willingly, righteously, and already regrets it.

* * *

 

Erwin drowns the hunger and the oncoming but necessary loss with a week’s supply of blood in a few days’ time.

Levi fucks his disappointment away, always with the tall, blond stranger who kisses and holds him hard until he can’t think and he bruises.

The next time they see each other, neither of them can look the other in the eye.

 _This won’t last_. Levi can’t convince himself.

* * *

 

He rolls the back of his skull against the lip of Erwin’s elegant tub, letting the steaming, pink-tinted water that smells like roses cover him up to his collarbones. Comfort doesn’t find him. It’s too hot; he’s suffocating in the bathroom and in his own head.

 _This won’t last,_ Levi thinks as he shifts to take the weight from his ass, still sore with play and some semblance of remorse. He shifts more to his side and runs a hand absently over his neck, down his chest, to his hip, tracing every mark left on him by a man whose named he can’t even remember right now.

He had hoped that by now he’d have gotten over it. He no longer needs Erwin to warm his home with his presence, leaving spots on the couch that smell like him after Levi buries it with the smell, the sounds, and the taste of another man.

Instead, all he gets out of it is a new contact on his phone under the name “call for fuck” because he doesn’t care to ask for his name he’s forgotten the morning after they met and a new persistent pain in his back he attributes to rough sex that’s probably getting too rough for his age.

Annoyed, Levi gets out of the tub and scrubs himself dry until he’s pink. Part of him mourns the waste of a stupidly expensive bath bomb that’s still dissolving in the bath. But he can’t pretend any of this soothes him anymore.

He doesn’t want to know abandonment the way Erwin does.

Instead he occupies himself wiping down the fogged mirror and the tub after all the water drains out.

When he’s dressed and dry, he finds Erwin on the couch. He’s quiet, and the television is off. He doesn’t turn to greet Levi, to ask him how his bath was, ask him which bath bomb he used this time.

“Want tea?” Levi asks, not approaching. The loft is oddly stifling.

“No, thank you.”

Then Erwin turns, blinking with pitch black eyes. Despite the countless times he’s seen it, it still startles him sometimes. Especially when Erwin blinks again and his face doesn’t smooth over to its human likeness.

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Thirsty.”

Levi still doesn’t approach. He swallows, tempted to take a step back. “Then drink.”

“I have none left,” Erwin responds flatly, turning back towards the dead television. He sits straight and stiff.

Levi pads over to the fridge to check and, surely enough, there are no bags left. He recalls at least a dozen from the last weekend and he knows that to last at least two weeks. Even the tiramisu he was saving for today is gone and Erwin usually leaves his food alone.

“Well, someone’s been binging,” Levi says.

“It happens sometimes,” Erwin says quietly, restrained. Levi thinks that's the end of it. Most of their conversations have been clipped lately. But then Erwin continues, “When I’m agitated.”

The loft is still apart from the floating specks of dust catching the sunlight from the windows. The silence is heavy and Levi feels like he’s drowning in steaming bath water. It might have been a bad idea to take a hot bath in the middle of summer.

Levi pinches his shirt by the collar and flaps it for cool air.

“Stop that.”

Erwin had growled, not spoken, from the couch. Even with his back turned, Levi notices the tension on his nape, sloping down to his shoulders.

“Fuck you. What’s your problem?” Levi snaps.

“You are,” Erwin grits through his fangs. He doesn’t turn.

“Oh so now it’s _my_ fault you’re a fucking vampire?” Levi sneers.

Erwin’s neck goes rigid – even more so – before he turns partly to the side. “I’m sorry,” he says quietly, intentionally not looking at Levi. “I can smell it more with injuries. Like bruises. It makes it difficult to focus. I didn’t mean to snap at you.”

Levi freezes. Bruises. Hickies. Erwin can smell it all over him.

He clenches his fists on the kitchen counter, white against the black marble, clenching around an apology he didn’t know he kept. He has nothing to apologize for. They’re _friends_ , after all. But the shame tastes like iron and bile in his throat.

“Where’s your supplier?” he manages to say, the venom in his mind diluted in his tone.

“I’ve already called her,” Erwin says. His voice goes softer, more composed. He talks to Levi like he talks to everyone else – polite and distant _–_ and Levi digs his nails into his palms. “She is probably busy. She’ll call me back, I’m sure.”

“Where is she?” Levi repeats. It is his fault. Erwin’s fault. Maybe no one’s. Maybe both of theirs. Nevertheless, Levi feels responsible for this beast on the leather couch.

“Levi, I appreciate it but you don’t--”

“I said I’ll get it!”

That’s how Levi finds himself far west from Erwin’s home at the basement of one of Sina University’s older buildings. The shaking has died down in his legs, echoing its restless bouncing in the cab on his way here. All he can think of are Erwin’s pitch black eyes.

He bites the inside of his cheek to keep himself from groaning. He regrets letting himself want more. He should have just watched.

He checks his phone again to check for Erwin’s directions when no one answers his knock on the door of room B402. He can hear murmured music from inside. He knocks again, hard enough for the door across the hall to open with a confused young man in a university hoodie staring at him.

He reads over the sign on the door to make sure he has the right place before barging in.

_Hange Zoe_

It’s a tiny room, almost as big as his bathroom, really, except it doesn’t even have a window. It’s a glorified closet with shelves and a long table where a woman in a white coat and a nest of brown hair in a high ponytail is bobbing her head to the music from her headphones. The music is so loud that Levi can hear the song.

He taps her on the shoulder, afraid that if he moves more than that, all that paperwork piled on the shelves will topple over and bury them alive.

“Oh my god!” she cries, jumping out of her chair, hand flat against her chest, ripping off her earphones, and knocking over two cans of Red Bull on her desk. “Oh my god, hi!”

“I’m here for Erwin’s supply,” he says. He’s relieved that the cans are empty – sugary messes are disgusting.

“Oh?” she peers at him, eyes narrowing comically behind her thick, smudged glasses that make her eyes owlish. “Hmm, he usually picks them up himself.”

“Yeah, and he’s out of commission,” Levi says impatiently. “He’s been trying to call you.”

She scrambles to look for her phone under the piles of paper on her desk, patting them down in a hurry. She topples a few more cans over. A wrapper crunches noisily under one of the folders.

Levi reaches into the pocket of her lab coat where the cord for her headphones ends and holds her phone up.

“Oh,” she laughs. She’s loud, Levi thinks, especially compared to Erwin. “...Oh shoot. Wow. Okay. I’ll be right back. Wait here. Uh, Levi, right?”

When she leaves, Levi takes the liberty of throwing the cans of Red Bull and Monster in the bin under her desk. He’d had to step on it to make it fit with all the other cans already in there. He cringes as he pats off the orange crumbs in the seams of her chair before sitting.

She comes back into the closet office after several minutes with a tightly sealed brown bag. If he had been someone else, there’s no way to know what was inside. He wonders if he should tell her they share Erwin’s secret. Like passing on a secret he no longer wants.

She’s beaming now, revealing a younger face Levi hadn’t noticed before. She must have been at in her late twenties. The young eagerness in her look makes him slightly uncomfortable.

 “Tell him he can come back tomorrow, this is all I have now. I get a new batch in the morning.”

“Tell him yourself,” he says, not looking forward to speaking with Erwin at all.

“You want something to drink maybe? You seem, you know, stressed?” she says, eyeing his bouncing knee. Levi scowls at her. “Maybe tea? It’s relaxing, I hear.”

Levi takes the bag from Hange, getting up to leave. “I’m good.”

“Will you come back tomorrow?” Hange asks. There’s optimism in her voice that stops Levi by the door.

He turns and furrows his brows at her bright grin, eager and already familiar. It must be all that liquid energy. Maybe it’s the room with no windows, with no one else to listen to but that godawful tune still blasting from her headphones. Maybe she’s just young and friendly, like most brats usually are, like most brats Levi don’t particularly like.

“Yeah, I’ll pass,” he scoffs but doesn’t take a step. “Your office is a mess.”

“Organized chaos, my friend.”

“This is just chaos. What’s on that pile then?” he jerks his head to a pile that’s a breath away from spilling all over the red-tile floor.

“Uh, stuff.”

“Right.” The pile does spill over. Levi rolls his eyes and leaves.

* * *

 

Erwin comes by the next day, feeling a little more like himself, with a grocery bag of energy drinks and an apology sitting on his tongue. He never had the chance to give it to Levi after he dropped off a single blood bag at his loft without even looking him in the face before leaving.

“Hange?” Erwin’s eyes widen when he opens the door to her tiny office. It looks twice as large as he remembers and doesn’t smell like sugar and artificial cherry. “You...cleaned.”

She swivels on her chair and Erwin is even more surprised. Instead of a can of Red Bull, Hange drinks from a tall cup and the smell of black tea and bergamot reaches him with familiar comfort.

“Hey, Dr. Smith!” she greets, grabbing a larger paper bag under from under her desk. “I got you your supplies. Some notes on the project too, if you wanna check those out.”

Erwin takes it wordlessly, still awed by the neat row binders on her shelves and the tea.

“Oh yeah, Levi cleaned,” Hange announces. “He came back yesterday and made me clean this place. Bossy little guy.”

“You spent time together?” Erwin blinks. The corner of his lips twitches at the image of Levi cleaning Hange’s office. He must have spent at least a couple of hours here.

“Uh-huh. Don’t worry, boss, I talked you up,” she says, sounding proud of herself for having done so..

“Excuse me?”

“I know how you can be weird around people,” she says matter-of-factly, busying herself with the contents of the bag Erwin gives her. “I mean, Levi’s a little weird, too. But I told him you’re not as constipated as you look.”

He appreciates her honesty. She brings it naturally to the work she does for him but it’s quite unsettling when it’s about him. He can never get used to her brand of candor; painfully blunt but well-meaning.

“Ah, thank you, Hange.”

Erwin stays and scans over the notes that Hange hands to him while she empties two cans of Monster happily. He hums, pleased with the results on the file.

“These are promising,” he says, handing the files back to her. “Thank you for all your work. Please expect the funds tomorrow.”

He leaves with one last look of Hange’s office and finds Levi’s touch everywhere. Binders arranged neatly on the shelves, a plastic bag lining the trash bin, a box of tea on Hange’s desk. He bids her goodbye with a rueful smile playing on his lips.

* * *

 

Levi is about to make a call to “call for fuck” and thinks of maybe asking for his name this time. But the phone jumps out of his hand when Erwin’s name flashes on his screen.

Erwin thanks him for introducing Hange to tea. He thinks those energy drinks will kill her and he’s a fool for not having thought of bringing her tea instead. She hates coffee. Levi scolds him for getting his blood from some woman whose office smells like Cheetos.

The sting of Erwin’s words still crawl over the healing bruises under his clothes, but he savors his voice. Erwin sounds relaxed, human. They sound like they’re both okay.

“She’s brilliant. I trust her,” Erwin says. Levi believes the pride in his voice.

When they hang up, Levi recalls what Hange had told him while she was standing on her desk, taking down the dusty boxes from her shelf.

“He’s usually real careful about people,” she’d told him, taking a more somber tone. Almost like a warning.

His phone screen returns to his list of contacts and he deletes the number of the man he doesn’t really want to know anymore.

 

 

 


	10. Secrets Unbound

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How does science explain the mangled things escaping from a freshly broken heart?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Massive thank you to the ever lovely ephieshine for establishing the science for this verse. She's my Hange tbh. <3
> 
>  
> 
> [I Lied - Nicki Minaj](http://youtu.be/ygHKNEm4Je8)

A body is generated through DNA replication - DNA molecules in continuous division until there’s enough to command the formation of an entire being: fingers, toes, the spine, blond hair, perhaps even the penchant for cleanliness, or natural charm, or propensity for fear or generosity. With each division, the end of the chromosome is shortened. Some information is lost along the way. But the body is a clever thing. At the end of the chromosome are telomeres, buffers that protect the end of the chromosome, shielding the information ingrained in the DNA as it divides itself, protecting the secrets that make us who we are.

* * *

Secrets that come unbound in the summer after the bruises on his skin heal and Erwin comes to his apartment with Chinese takeout as a peace offering.

They don't talk about what happened. Instead they both hold on to the newly-formed peace gingerly as if it will bruise if prodded and jostled too much. They don't name it either, both aware that a label is admission to something neither is prepared to admit.

But Levi grows more restless as Erwin comes to his thoughts more and more often like cells in perpetual division, forming new desires, new warmth, new comfort. There are things he wants to say, labels and admissions, all stumbling on top of each other, but they never make it past his teeth without shattering onto each other and coming out as odd endearments.

("Hey, shithead. You're turning vampire again.")

("Come on, old man, getting older here.")

("Oh my god, Erwin, you're embarrassing yourself.")

And Erwin laughs in his unguarded way and Levi can't help but raise a brow at him. It is as if Erwin hears them as something else: _darling, sweetheart, love_. Perhaps Erwin understands them as he means them, as twisted and crude as they come out.

Is there something wrong with both of them? In the back of his mind, he knows there is.

* * *

Levi lets his eyes linger on their reflection against store windows until Erwin catches him looking. He doesn't look away until Erwin smiles at him. Sometimes he smiles back. Most of the time, he gives Erwin his middle finger and relishes the sound of Erwin's carefree laughter.

* * *

His incessantly bouncing knee only seems to respond to Erwin's touch, a kind pressure that lays there seemingly forgotten as they eat their snack in yet another hole in the wall in a bustling colorful Lincoln Park, a neighborhood they both frequent. Levi lets his hand brush against Erwin's when he spreads a napkin on his lap. Sometimes Erwin pats his knee before pulling it away. One time, he pats Levi's hand instead and Levi carefully lets himself believe it's not by mistake.

* * *

Erwin kneads his ankle, his foot, sometimes his calf on sticky summer afternoons when they have time to hide away in Erwin's apartment. Levi wakes up to a dark apartment with a throw blanket over him and a note from Erwin that he's gone to Hange's lab and "won't you have dinner with me when I come back?"

Levi always waits.

And Erwin, always the gentleman, walks Levi to the door after they have dinner of take-out food from Trader Joe's. His hand, as easily as it finds Levi's bony ankle or his bouncing knee, finds his shoulder. Levi softens at the touch, eyes always averted as Erwin leans down to press a kiss on his cheek.  
But this time, Levi flicks his gaze up at him, rooting him to the spot.

"Is this some old geezer thing?" he asks. Erwin notes the softness in his voice, the slight fear, the terrible hope.

The lie sits ready on his tongue. Yes it's simply a gesture from the past. We are friends after all. But Levi's eyes are clear and he knows this isn't the time to lie to Levi. That he doesn't want to anymore.

So instead, he asks, "Does it make you uncomfortable?"

"No."

The answer comes so quickly, so naturally that Erwin feels the fondness bloom in his chest faster than he can stop it. He must not let it bloom and keep him warm. He cannot. Not when all his fears are realized when Levi puts a hand on his arm and tugs gently.

But he wants so much of Levi and leans down to meet his lips soft on his cheek.

"'Night, Erwin," he says.

"Good night," he answers as Levi leaves.

He touches the spot where Levi had kissed him and traces the hope he leaves there. It feels heavy and Erwin decides he must come clean soon.

Eventually, the telomeres are shortened, too. They wither away, unable to keep the secrets bound in ourselves.

* * *

And the body, perhaps the soul that might also be in the DNA, struggles to stay alive. There is an enzyme inside us that preserves the telomeres, allowing them to stay longer, to keep protecting information that will otherwise be lost to replication. This enzyme preserves the information itself and allows for perpetual cell division that can defy death itself. A theoretical fountain of youth. Telomerase - immortality within.

“But uncontrolled cell growth is usually called a tumor so there’s that,” Hange shrugs with a lopsided smile. Levi narrows his eyes at her, catching a hint of defeat he’s never noticed before. “You know, cancer.”

It's too hot to nap even with Erwin's air conditioner so he comes to Hange's lab with him. It's the middle of the afternoon on a Saturday and the place is deserted. But Levi is grateful, the basement is cool, and Hange managed to throw all the energy drink cans littering her desk with just a slight scolding. Erwin had excused himself to the main lab while Hange keeps him company with a paper cup of tea.

The bags under her eyes have turned lavender, her hair almost matted, but she seems genuinely energized. It must be the drinks.

“Yeah, I got that.”

He tells her he knows what the weekly supply is for, not giving more information than that, trying to feel for what she’s trying to get at. He expects a burst of manic excitement from Hange. Instead she sighs smiling and slumps back on her chair. It looks like a heavy weight off her shoulders. But worry grows inside him.

“Erwin has cancer.”

It drops like a bomb in the middle of a desert and leaves Levi out of air and light-headed. He had expected something to be wrong with Erwin and the worry is born out of what he fears will come after, the unknown darkness Erwin keeps that Hange knows and he doesn’t.

“No, no! Not like that, his is special,” Hange says, noting Levi’s lack of color. She lowers her voice and leans closer even though there’s probably only three of them in the building now. “Whatever it is in his blood what makes him a vampire, I think it’s carried through a virus, completely rewrote his DNA. Now he has this perfected telomerase activity and perpetual cell division without any sign or risk for mutation, no Hayflick Limit, too. Immunity to viruses and foreign bacteria, heightened tactile sensitivities due to fully healthy, perfect cells. Doesn’t explain the bloodthirst though but--”

“You're losing me here.”

“Well. Think of it as Erwin’s body as evolution in action. Like...cancer perfected. Miracle cancer,” Hange says with a hint of reverence. Like she fears it as much as she’s awed with it. She purses her lips, owlish eyes searching his.

With the telomeres stripped away, secrets are unprotected.

Levi mulls over the information, his lips absently on his paper cup of tea. His knee is bouncing again like an anxious rocking of a crying child. It’s a disease, he thinks. But a good one and Levi pictures Erwin in Hange’s lab with tubes and needles on him, arms tethered to a bed with light on his face, teams of researchers and doctors dissecting him, probing at his cells to find his secrets.

Levi decides against taking another sip of tea with the threat of nausea building down his stomach.

“So this project is your vampire cure for cancer? Doubt that’ll fly with the FDA.” He struggles to reduce the worry to a deadpan.

“No,” she says heavily. It’s a hard-won answer. “It only works if the person is turned and Erwin won’t tell me how to do it. I’ve tried transfusion, ingestion, colonies, and I’m still working on just isolating the vampire compound and--”

“So what is it then?”

“I’m trying to kill him.”

The nausea hits him completely.

“Yep.” Hange explains that, according to Erwin’s theories, a vampire can only be killed in a sort of double turning event. The second turn essentially reverses the vampirism, rendering the person mortal again. “But this compound is DNA-sensitive from what he explained. Only the original host’s DNA will get a response from the vampire. Since Erwin’s parent vampire is dead, he can’t die. But if I figure this out, I could maybe reverse engineer it and...and you don’t know about this.”

Hange slowly closes her mouth, realizing her mistake.

Levi can’t remember when he had stood up, chest tight with dread. His fingernails dig into his palms and he has to hold his breath to keep himself from raising his voice. Hange looks up at him, eyes wide behind her glasses.

“Does he know about this?” His voice drips with accusation as he approaches her. He could grab her by the lab coat and shake the truth out of her. Worry turns into something dark and hot inside him.

“Yes, Levi,” Hange rises slowly with her hands held out in front of her. She recognizes the wild, angered look in Levi’s eyes. She had worn the same one a long time ago. “This is his project. This is the point of it since the start.”

Levi doesn’t need to know. He doesn’t want to know. But he asks anyway because he has to know just how foolish he has been. He has to know if he ever stood a chance.

“Since when?” His eyes narrow at her. His voice falters with hurt.

“Five years now.”

* * *

Erwin comes back from the main lab with a thick folder of paperwork, all detailing the promise of a long-awaited success. Hange had been hard at work with their research and had lately been making steady progress in finding a way to isolate the vampire compound in his blood. It’s only a matter of time before she finds a way to create a mirror of it to trigger his second turning. It’s a long-awaited relief and Hange is his last hope. If she cannot do this now, there is a possibility no one else can. She is brilliant and she delivers. She must before he changes his mind.

The promise excites him. But with Levi always in the background of his thoughts, the promise feels like blatant dishonesty.

“Where is Levi?”

Hange looks up from her tea with a tired and blank expression. “He left, boss. I told him about the project and he left.”

* * *

Because death comes to all _. To most_ , Levi corrects himself. And death works relentlessly, mechanically as it is one of the codes hidden in the smallest parts of us. Even with telomeres preserving the DNA during replication, the chromosome can only divide itself for so many times, and telomerase is an ill-understood secret of our bodies.

He shows up at Levi's apartment late that evening and there's a jarring coldness that meets him at the door. The apartment is dark except for the laptop opened on Levi's unfolded sleeper couch. And Levi is cold. His eyes pierce like silver shards of ice from a long-forgotten winter. Silent and watching. They stand on either side of the doorway without words.

"Hange told you," Erwin says. At that, Levi stiffens, his lips a hard, even line. He steps aside to let Erwin in.

"I've been working with Hange to find a way for me to die, I'm sure she told you," Erwin starts. "I'm unable to, by myself. And I would like to."

Levi observes him from a distance, a dark heavy figure in the middle of his living room. Erwin, the object of his thoughts, the catalyst to the strange stirrings of his feelings that he tries to push down every time they happen. Erwin, the old immortal vampire with abandonment still in etched in the lines of his face. Erwin, the willing. Erwin, the dying man.

He wants to understand him but can't when he doesn’t even understand why it matters. Everyone dies. He's watched the world enough to know this simple, absolute truth.

"She's capable, very capable," he says, still not facing Levi. "She may be able to use this research for something less selfish perhaps."

Selfish. Levi agrees he is being selfish. Both of them actually. But he stands there quietly, letting the words simmer.

"I must have…" Erwin hesitates. Levi can hear him changing his mind, creating another secret in the middle of _his_ home. "I mean, you must understand."

It doesn't sound like an obvious statement. The intonation of his words is stuck between a question and an answer. No, I don't understand. 

" _You_ don't understand."

Levi's voice explodes in the room, surprising them both. Erwin turns to Levi looking straight at him, eyes dark and intent under furrowed brows.

"This is fucking ridiculous. You're fucking ridiculous," Levi says. He can feel his chest tightening again, struggling to keep the words down as they come out completely different from what he's screaming in his head.

“Do you even know what you’re trying to do –“

_Why didn’t you tell me?  
_

“People are trying to live forever; that’s the whole point of—“

_What did you want from me?  
_

“—literature, art, science. _Fucking_. Jesus Christ. Modern medicine, _everything about it_ , Erwin. And you’re giving it up because, what—“

_Why did you let me—  
_

“—because you’re _lonely_?”

The words hang in the air.

_I was, too. I am, too._

Levi knows he’s overstepped a boundary he knows is there. But he is at his limit, he can only divide himself between the satisfaction of being Erwin’s friend and the desire to want more out of this before his resolve is depleted. He reaches beyond the limit, beyond the fact that they’re friends, that Erwin is straight, that Erwin is a vampire.

Erwin only looks down to him and wordlessly touches his shoulder, his hand an alien comfort on his skin. He looks away, not ready to watch the way Erwin looks at him.

Then it dawns on him how foolish he had been, so blinded by Erwin’s charms that he managed to miss the one secret that would have mattered most. Levi doesn’t care how old he is, who had turned him, what would happen if he cut off Erwin’s arm - would his cells replicate and create a new one?

But he sees it now, the truth that hides behind Erwin’s rueful smile, an ugly bastard that lurks in the distance between them. He finally looks up and the truth stares back at Levi as his own reflection in Erwin’s sad human eyes. It’s clear. It’s dark.

Betrayal.

He is betrayed.

“You…should go,” he mutters, suddenly feeling spent. Erwin’s hand drops in the darkness.

He had wanted Erwin—ready to give, to reach out only to realize Erwin was never willing to catch his touch on the other side. Erwin remains untouchable. Levi remains the fool. The feeling grounds him, anchors him, and silences the disappointment. Betrayal burns quietly and the stillness centers him until it consumes everything and he is empty again. He’s just another shadow watching the world go by. Watching Erwin walk away because he cannot understand the kind of man who can hold on to that darkness for so long he grows blind with it.

“Levi,” Erwin starts, then pauses at the door.

He doesn’t want the earnest sound of his name, folded with promises and apologies Erwin will never give. He doesn't want the secrets coming undone now. He wants nothing.

“Levi, I want this as well.”

How does science explain the mangled things escaping from a freshly broken heart?

“That makes one of us.” He closes the door on Erwin with a cold and final click.


	11. Lost, Then Found

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He is lost and wanting and hopes, just once, not to find his way but to be found.
> 
> “Erwin,” Levi says with an awkward gentleness, because Erwin looks just as lost. “What do you want?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrong the grave with fears untrue:  
> Shall love be blamed for want of faith?  
> There must be wisdom with great Death:  
> The dead shall look me through and through.
> 
> -Lord Alfred Tennyson, In Memoriam A.H.H
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you to ephieshine, who knows exactly when and where to drive the knife in a bit. A woman after my own heart, truly.

The silence sits differently now. In the past, it had been a pleasant companion that Levi had welcomed, sought even. But now in the stillness of his home, punctuated by the closing click of his door, it is as if a part of him had dropped into the abyss, never to be retrieved again.

 _The quiet sense of something lost_ , Levi remembers from a poem he had read in college, buried beneath all the other words he had read and said and not said since then. Lost.

Levi is lost.

Summer passes without event. Levi’s phone sits mute in the afternoons, his weekends undisturbed with the steady tapping of his laptop, his evenings wordless. The expectation that Erwin would call or come with too much Chinese take-out and a skillful avoidance of the issue at hand quietly ebbs away as summer comes to an early end.

By fall, Levi had gone back to his routine from before, almost as if Erwin had never been a part of it at all. Still, it feels strange – proof that Erwin had made a spot for himself in Levi’s life and had then left it bare and wanting. Except for the addition of after-work drinks with Hange, he’s back to his shoe-box apartment with a couch that feels too large and empty now.

“Hey!”

Levi turns on his stool and finds a disheveled Hange wrestling her overstuffed bag onto the empty seat next to her. “I’m so sorry I’m late,” she pants. She’s almost an hour late. Again.

Levi only shrugs. “I’d be surprised if you were on time. Or if you actually washed your nasty-ass hair this week.” He waves to the bartender. Hange orders and settles down as Levi observes his friend. The bags under her eyes are more pronounced, her hair is more haphazard, and her breath smells strongly of Red Bull. She had been complaining that Erwin keeps her late even on weeknights to work on the project when they’re not even close to making any more progress than they had, much to her disappointment.

“Have you talked to Erwin?” she asks. Like she always does.

“No,” Levi frowns. What was there to say? He wouldn’t know what the right words would sound like, if there were any.

Hange hums around her cocktail. “You should. Look, I’m all for working a lot but he needs to have some kind of life outside of this project so _I_ can have a life.”

Levi doesn’t say anything.

“I’m serious,” she continues. “I get it, you’re upset he didn’t tell you about it, and again I’m sorry for springing it on you like that, but you gotta get over it. He’s just real careful around people. And he’s already told you a lot about himself.”

“Yeah, you mentioned,” Levi says. “Just...mind your business, kid.”

“It is my business,” she insists, not unkindly. “I need him not to burn us both out. And I definitely don’t want him pulling out of this project if he, I don’t know, decides he doesn’t want to die anymore.”

She looks at him pointedly, a teasing smirk on her lips.

“What the fuck do you want from me then?” Levi snaps, hand tightening around his beer. “He’s a grown-ass man. He can pull his shit together just fine.”

“Sure he can,” Hange laughs, unaffected by Levi’s irritation. “He’s freaking out for no reason, really. He thinks you’re going to ask him to, you know, turn you if you guys hooked up.”

Levi almost swallows his beer wrong and looks away. Hange’s bluntness is something he appreciates; he doesn’t have the time nor the patience to decipher people’s hidden meanings. But sometimes, perhaps, she’s a bit too blunt. Too perceptive.

“I never asked.”

“That’s what I told him!” she says, happily raising her glass to her own point.  “It’s interesting that he’s suddenly worried about it now because he won’t do it anyway.  I already asked.”

“Didn’t think you were interested in that,” Levi recalls a conversation they had a while ago. Hange thinks living forever isn’t natural but, oddly enough, doesn’t think suffering from illness is either. Perhaps it’s her age – youth comes with so much hope for good.

“Not for me,” she says. “It was for Moblit.”

Moblit Berner, she says, was the principal investigator for the research team she had joined a few years ago. She had been ecstatic to work with one of the university’s most esteemed assets, the youngest the university had ever deemed Researcher of the Year. To her surprise, his brilliant mind was only matched by his kindness. He had been the first to listen carefully to Hange’s hypothesis about gap junctions and cancer metastasis when she had been a freshly-graduated postdoc with big ideas and a tiny understanding of feasibility. For the first time in her academic career, someone had bothered to see past her overwhelming eagerness and unguarded curiosity to see potential and dedication. Moblit had also been Erwin’s original supplier – the first to look into a way for Erwin to kill himself.

 “He was the one who figured out the gist of the science of Erwin’s vampirism – brilliant, really,” she says with thinly-veiled adoration, words slow and muffled like she was drunk. Or, struggling to keep herself together and her voice stable with a forced chuckle, and it makes Levi swallow uncomfortably. “Kind of ironic because right after he looked into it, he was diagnosed.”

Pancreatic cancer. Stage IV M1. She pauses before telling Levi that by that time, his only sensible option was surgery to alleviate the pressure building against his organs and immediate palliative care. She took over the research for Erwin and that’s when she had asked him to turn Moblit. It would have been beneficial for both parties: Moblit would live, and Erwin would have Moblit for a very long time to complete the project for him. It was reasonable, smart, and entirely possible.

“Except Erwin wouldn’t do it,” Hange says, voice forced light. “I kind of hated him for that.”

Levi turns to her. Her fingers wrap tightly around her empty glass, then loosens. The corner of her lips curls.

She was young and angry and afraid. She stole samples of Erwin’s blood and tried what she could to turn the sick man. Hange snuck into Moblit’s room and injected it into him. She put it in his drink. She grew cultures of cells transfected with Erwin’s virus and transferred them to Moblit’s system. None of it worked. She went back to Erwin and, in a moment of weakness, let go of reason and appealed to his humanity. Threw away her dignity and begged. As it turned out, he didn’t have much of it left at that point. He had refused again.

Moblit had loved her. Perhaps she’d loved him first. Levi doesn’t ask to what capacity because what does it matter? Loss is loss: sons without mothers, students without mentors. They are all pieces lost in the abyss and, in that moment, he understands Hange’s drive to do what Erwin had asked. Maybe she’ll find that lost piece everyone seem to always look for.

“But in the end, Moblit didn’t want it,” she finally says, the notes of bitterness replaced by something sweet and nostalgic. She smiles, defeated but pleasant. “He said… he said it would suck to be like that, to watch everyone he... he cared about die around him. Then I guess I kind of got where Erwin was coming from. I mean, it’s gotta suck, right? To live that long when no one else will.”

 _Especially when he gave them that option._ The words remain unspoken between them.

With all lovers turned to corpses under his hand when they have loved far longer than people are meant to, it had left Erwin alone with his curse.

He wonders if that’s what Erwin had meant, that to turn someone is to love them to death, literally. And he thinks it all so stupid that Erwin would sacrifice everything that would make him human - love, loss, pain, healing, the impermanence of everything - for death, the most human thing he couldn’t have.

“I’m just saying: if you’re planning to croak when you’re supposed to, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to give up something you don’t have to. Or whatever,” she says, as she turns on her seat and leans her elbows on the bar. She gives Levi a knowing look. “Just don’t change his mind about this, okay? Make sure he leaves me a trust fund or something so I can actually do something more than just kill people with this before you ride off into the sunset together forever.”

It’s hard to ignore the way he follows Hange’s words, perhaps the voice of reason in his head is starting to take on her Red Bull-induced tone.

He returns her look and nods, then tips his bottle.

“To Moblit.”

She echoes him, bright and drunk with relief at his understanding.

* * *

 

Levi wakes up the next day to a soft rapping on his door. He carefully steps over a snoring Hange on the inflatable mattress on the floor to answer it.

“Levi.”

Erwin stands at his door, perfect in every way without a hair out of place, but something in his eyes dulls the usual easy charm he wears. He draws breath as if starting a sentence when Levi’s gaze meets his. He thinks better of it and closes his mouth again in a tight, uncertain smile. Levi folds his arms and Erwin, in response, straightens himself.

He forgives Erwin right there in the hallway, washing away the last remnants of betrayal he had felt. Erwin is a vampire. But he is also human. He is perfect and yet he is not.

“Hange is here,” he says, unsure why that matters now as he steps past the threshold.

“I see,” Erwin glances down. “How are you, Levi?”

 _Lost_ , he wants to say. Because Erwin leaves him crumbs along a path that leads to nowhere, clues too sparse to make sense of. He is lost and he doesn't want to be. He wants Erwin to give him more than just clues; for Erwin to take his hand and kiss his cheek and tell him all the things his immortal years have taught him while Levi still has time. He is lost and wanting and hopes, just once, not to find his way but to be found.

“Erwin,” Levi says with an awkward gentleness, because Erwin looks just as lost. “What do you want?”

Something shifts between them and Levi knows that when Erwin steps towards him he means never to take a step back again. That when the ghost of Erwin’s thumb whispers apologies on his lips, the tip of his nose, his cheek, his jaw, Erwin means it.

Levi moves in, and Erwin presses his lips on Levi’s temple, whispers a simple truth that feels as absolute as death, as his wish for it, as the longing taking root in Levi’s heart.

He nods when Erwin pulls away.

“Okay,” he says, then clears his throat as he tries and fails to purse the smile breaking across his face at Erwin’s words. “Okay. Go. Before Hange wakes up.”

Erwin cups his jaw quickly with an easy smile. It’s hard to believe that Erwin could be a monster. He pulls an envelope from his jacket and gives it to Levi. “I hope you’ll come,” he says.

Levi takes it without looking. He will come, he will come wherever Erwin calls him to, he admits. He will come because he doesn’t feel so lost when Erwin leans down again and kisses his cheek in farewell.

When he comes back inside, Hange looks up at him squinting with sleep and a slow sobering while he examines the ticket insidethe envelope.

“What did he say?”

“Wanted to go to some lunar eclipse viewing thing,” Levi says, handing her the envelope and quickly heads to his kitchen to make tea as she falls back asleep, crumpling the ticket in her hand. A peaceful stillness descends.

_You, Levi. I have missed you._

The silence sits differently now, no longer the quiet sense of something lost but the whisper of the promise of being found.


	12. Always

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Always." Erwin swears. “It will always count.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you to the lovely ephieshine :)
> 
> and thank you for being a wonderful audience. your kudos and comments keep me going. thank you for your patience and your support, i'm so glad to have you along for the ride :)
> 
>  
> 
> [Third Eye - Florence + The Machine](https://play.spotify.com/album/2jn2n5OkuHliOLKCqHnjXV)

"Flooding?"

Levi repeats after plopping down on Erwin's couch at 1 am on a Thursday. Erwin tries not to smile at the disappointment in Levi’s tone. "So these tickets are useless then."

Erwin had gotten them tickets to see the second lunar eclipse of the year from a telescope at the Adler Planetarium. But while Levi was soaking in his bathtub, Erwin received a call from guest services informing him that there had been a burst pipe that flooded the ground floor.

"There is a seating area in the rooftop," Erwin offers. "We can see it from there."

"It's too cold outside, idiot," Levi reminds him. "We can see the damn moon from the window. Here. Help me move the couch."

Erwin ends up pushing the couch against the wall by himself, facing the window, while Levi brews them tea, loose leaves kept in a silver tin and smells strongly of bitter black and fresh bergamot. Something Levi wouldn’t have bought for himself. He had given it to Levi in a beautiful gold and navy paper bag as another peace offering when Levi had arrived at his doorstep with a deadpan expression and an unapologetic, “Now that we’re cool, can I use your tub before we go?”

They wait as the moon very slowly dims in the sky. They do have a perfect view of it from the living room window but the furniture’s position leaves little leg room, such that they have to fold themselves into the couch. Levi’s socked feet are tucked between his legs and he reaches for them without thinking.

“Erwin, this is so boring,” Levi yawns, soft with sleepiness. “You paid $35 to see this shit?”

Erwin massages his ankle. “It comes with champagne. And the moon turns red.”

“When?”

“Soon.” He stretches his legs past Levi’s space on the couch and is happy to be let into the small spaces left there. Levi’s feet rest on his thighs. “Sleep. I’ll wake you up when it happens.”

For an hour, he watches the moon turn gray and listens to Levi’s snoring.

He had seen thousands of sunsets, 521 lunar eclipses, 468 solar eclipses, 18 blue moons, three great comets, and one Leonid storm. They all blend together in the background of eternity, no longer rare or magical. They no longer take his breath away like they had when he had first found himself under the light of a shooting star thinking how wonderful it is that he could do this over and over and over again.

As it turns out, people are made to last long enough only before history has a chance to repeat itself. One cycle: that’s really all a person _should_ be allotted. Erwin realizes, not just for himself but everyone who had shared this curse with him, that living for longer than that gives people too much time to accumulate regrets and guilt.

And with no one left alive to forgive them, from where do they get closure?

At the first whisper of red, so subtle that it’s only noticeable through Erwin’s changed eyes, he wakes Levi up with a gentle squeeze of his ankle.

“That’s pretty cool,” Levi says, still thick with sleep. Honey-like, and Erwin wants to remember this moment, hopes that time doesn’t rob him of this memory. He’s turned to his side watching the eclipse slowly unfold, painted red and gold and Erwin can’t remember the last time he felt like he couldn’t breathe. “Thanks. For showing me this.”

Then it dawns on him.

Levi does not ask for things, he just accepts them as they come because he orbits around the world, like the moon, simply there and grateful for whatever the sun will cast on him. He watches without expectation. He doesn’t ask for much and he hasn’t asked Erwin for anything at all.

“I don’t know what else I can give you, Levi,” he says. “I will not - ” No. He will not allow himself even the possibility of the option. “I cannot turn you.”

“Stop,” Levi snaps, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Fuck. _Stop_. Stop acting like you’re going to kill me.”

Levi sits up, shaking his head, the sky casting an orange glow against the crease between his brows.

“Erwin,” he sighs. “Just...Just have this.”

He’s only given. Invitations, warmth, forgiveness. And Erwin has simply forgotten how to accept.

Because companionship, for vampires, is a skittish, lovely, and dangerous creature. It comes and goes like seasons and tides, like sunsets and red and blue moons. And Erwin’s past had been littered with so many broken ones that he cowers in the face of another chance for it.

"This won’t last," Erwin says and it stings.

Because Levi is his great comet - quiet and burning, there and gone in the whirling chaos of his universe. There is no way to capture him. He can only watch as he glides across the sky and back into the dark.

But Levi climbs over his legs, a heavy weight that grounds him, boldly closing the space between them. A hand finds the swell of Erwin's chest, palm flat and fingers spreading. Levi is here. Now.

 _Now_ , when everything seems undeniably within reach; _now_ , as he can’t even imagine losing Levi, can’t imagine life without this man, can’t imagine where he’ll find the strength when the time comes,

"Then make it count," Levi says.

The distance he had built as a protective mask falls piece by piece as he looks up at this man. It’s strange and he feels bare without this armor of old penance. It had allowed him to hide who he is - a very old man with few but grave regrets, an ugly corpse that refuses to rot. And yet, Levi looks him in the eye as if he sees something else. Someone kind and good. Someone who isn’t closed-off, world-weary. Someone deserving, of love and of trust.

To Levi, he is no gift nor curse or sinner. He is _someone_.

The warmth of Levi’s weight sinks into his muscles, right through his immortal heart, in every cell of his body, clinging to his bones. He, for all his turned strength, cannot fight the gravity of it, would be a fool to deny it.

It feels like a gift. Like confession. It feels a lot like–

An easy smile spreads across Levi's face, bright and soft like moonlight, and Erwin finally allows himself to feel, to _be_ wholly, desperately human.

His chest pauses at the rise, potential held at the precipice before the inevitable kinetic fall. 

“Always." Erwin swears. “It will always count.”

He fills his arms full of promise and of Levi, a force that draws him in without effort. Their lips meet in a sweet stellar explosion, powerful, briefly outshining all the ghosts of his past.

Erwin moves with earnest touches and even more earnest kisses. He had longed for this kind of warmth after decades of forcibly forgetting how good it can be and not quite remembering if it had been _this_ good. Perhaps he had just been wanting for too long, starved for touch, and yearning for a live heartbeat against his.

Perhaps it’s just Levi.

They sink into each other, hands finding purchase of skin, hair, flesh and fabric. They press closer together, pulling, pushing and colliding in equal spirit.

Levi opens his mouth and the heat is a new wonder to Erwin. A vaguely familiar thing, one he’s experienced with countless lovers, and yet with Levi it’s novel, incredible. Hungry, but a gentle, sweet hunger that aches softly. He chases the taste of tea and hope on Levi's lips, drinking the precious sighs of his acceptance. Breathes in the particularly lovely sound that comes when he lightly bites Levi's lower lip with blunt teeth.

There’s a missed kiss here or there, lips pressed on a cheek, a nose, a chin. They manage to find each other again, slotting together like two puzzle pieces that weren’t quite made for each other but close enough.

Slowly, Levi pushes past the last of his reservations, tongue sweet on his, and he welcomes it. Welcomes the fragrance that invades his senses, threatening the seams of his self-control. He lets Levi overwhelm him, coaxing his mind past the point of craving that rises with each labored breath. Each touch, each sigh, each tangle of their limbs is amplified by the hunger. Levi smells like fresh, rushing blood but tastes and feels like human comfort and Erwin lets himself take what’s given to him so freely.

Levi breaks away for air, flushed and quiet while his heartbeat thunders clear and ardent in Erwin's ears. The moment is exhilarating, catching both of them breathless at the impossibility of it all.

 _This won’t last_ , Erwin thinks with a renewed sense of relief that Levi, mortal as he is, will forever stand in his memory as the man who gives him this.

 _This_. A chance to be alive - truly alive - again.

He holds Levi tighter, as if it will keep him from the hands of Time, and Levi firmly presses his forehead on Erwin’s chest in response. His weight falls back, resting on Erwin’s thighs as they breathe in synchrony, in and out.

_You are good, you are deserving, you can have this._

"Thank you, Levi," Erwin says, almost too quietly in the part of ink black hair. It's not enough. Not even close. He never did find the word for gratitude, regret, and hope all neatly folded into one. Maybe there isn't a word for it in any language; only a hand on his jaw, a fixed gaze, and the tilt of a head in perfect grace. Perhaps it's that small space between them, waiting to be filled with a story still unwritten in the echoes of dead and dying stars.

(Perhaps it’s just Levi.)

They meet again, more slowly, more gently, pulling and pushing in tides of soft unhurried kisses.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hit me up at [twistedkit.tumblr](http://twistedkit.tumblr.com/)


	13. In Between

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “But you won’t hurt me,” Levi says simply. He is not afraid of what Erwin could do. He is afraid of what Erwin could not. 
> 
> “I won’t hurt you,” Erwin promises and the thought fades out of Levi’s mind before he can dwell on it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, [ephieshine](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ephieshine/profile) <3

This is not how he had pictured the first time he would be sharing a bed with Erwin. Definitely not buzzed in borrowed clothes, tucked like a proper person, with Erwin maneuvering a drunk and snoring Hange on the leather sectional in the living room.

It’s Friday and Levi had called Erwin to pick them up from a bar in West Loop because he didn’t know where Hange lives and he hadn’t wanted to haul a half-conscious adult all the way back to his place. He had resolved to leave right after Hange had been safely dropped off at Erwin’s but Erwin had caught him by the wrist and said, “It’s two in the morning, Levi. Please stay.”

Levi had thought to refuse. It seemed odd to stay over especially when not much had changed between them after the night he had literally thrown himself into Erwin’s arms. The empty space Erwin had left behind had been quickly filled up again, the old sleeper couch welcoming the added weight like an old friend; kisses had been pressed onto flushed cheeks, an ankle cradled in Erwin’s hands.

“Are you uncomfortable?” Erwin asks Levi who’s lying stiff straight on his bed. He shuts the bedroom lights and closes the door halfway after giving Hange a final glance over his shoulder. He hands Levi a glass of water and some ibuprofen on a paper towel. Levi finds the kindness – and sanitation – endearing.

"Just tired," he mumbles. Tired of wondering why the fuck they haven't fucked yet.

Not that Levi is in any hurry. They're both old in their own ways, urgencies and the heat of youth no longer simmering just beneath skin like a threatening open flame; rather, quiet embers remain in their bones. Still, there’s longing and it is unkind and unaging, undeniable.

Little has changed and it makes him itch because Levi is so used to handshakes quickly turning into kisses then sweat and semen splattered on his sheets; easy, thoughtless transactions with clear, definite expectations. Having moments like these, the slow ticking time in-between, makes him uneasy.

“You’re sure?” Erwin asks and Levi’s answer comes out as a hasty yes when the side of the bed dips to Erwin’s weight. They’re sharing a bed and it feels clinical. “Levi, I can go without sleeping, if you’d rather not share the bed,” Erwin kindly offers again. This is the third time.

“Don’t be stupid, it’s your bed.”

The room settles into a companionable silence, both of them awake. Levi’s head is swimming pleasantly, body light and lit warm from his gut. Erwin’s sheets and pillows swallow him softly and he sinks into the smell of fabric softener and Erwin’s soap - something earthy but refreshing. Minty almost. It should all be so lulling and it should be so easy to be pulled into a bourbon-induced sleep but he’s still lying there with his hands to his sides, staring blearily at the ceiling.

“Hange wanted me to get a sample of your spunk.”

Erwin shifts. “She wanted to know if that’s how you turn someone,” Levi continues. He doesn’t know how the moments in-between are filled; how the economies of romance are played; how one red moon had turned into a kiss, then a promise, then the strong stirring in his chest that makes his heart skip.

Erwin turns to towards Levi. Close, but not close enough.

“This is not a venereal disease, I assure you,” Erwin says, amused. He shifts some more until he’s propped on his side and Levi almost jumps when Erwin rests a hand on his arm. Closer. But still not close enough.

He turns his head slowly, his vision jerking as his eyes slowly focus on Erwin smiling at him with the city lights filtered steel blue onto his features and painting him slightly wolfish. Levi’s mouth is suddenly dry and he blames the booze.

“Hange also has this theory that if we cut off your arm it’ll grow back,” Levi says. “Like a lizard. Since you regenerate or something. She said we should start with a small appendage.”

He flicks his gaze down to Erwin’s crotch, sending Erwin into laughter so hearty the bed shakes. The pressure on his arm is heavier, hotter. The stiffness in his limbs softens with the touch. “Are my private areas always the topic of your conversation?” Erwin asks.

“Private areas,” Levi scoffs. “You sound so old.” Erwin agrees that he is and doesn’t press the question further. Instead, he presses closer to Levi until he’s a breath away and Levi is bound to his gaze, blues framed by long lashes.

“Maybe it’s the ankle,” he muses, sending a deliciously bourbon-laced breath to Erwin, who dips down and presses a kiss to the corner of his chapping mouth. Chaste, tentative. “It’s either a fetish or has something to do with vampires.”

Impressed, Erwin pulls back. “Perceptive.”

Levi thinks to ask which one he guessed right but the words are lost when Erwin kisses him full on the mouth, closed and hesitant.

And the silence swallows them whole. Levi is caught in the middle of unfamiliar terrains filled with slow touches up his arm, leisurely kisses, flutters of lashes against his cheek. He realizes, in a moment of clarity, that he doesn’t actually know what he’s doing or what he’s supposed to do. Panic jumps up his throat like the burn of alcohol.

“I don’t know how to do this,” he blurts out against Erwin’s lips and Erwin detaches. “I mean this. I don’t...do relationships.”

The liquor makes his tongue loose on the one instant he means to be more tactful. He means he’s never done it before, never had the desire to, and after Erwin’s whispered promise that night they first kissed, “I don’t do relationships” sounds like an insult.

Erwin sighs heavy and it sits like hot stones in Levi’s gut. “I don’t do this, either.” Levi knows what he means. He doesn’t do this with mortals, ticking lives with fixed deadlines. With fragile bodies and fickle time. The admission sits heavier still.

Another moment in between.

“Would you try it, with me?” Erwin asks quietly, so hopeful and open that something inside Levi cracks in the middle of it and he reaches for Erwin’s hand under the cover, tucking Erwin’s fingers underneath his.

“Yeah, ‘course.” It slips out easily, smooth against his slightly drunk tongue, still tasting sweet and bitter and desperate. The words come like he’s been waiting to say it. Erwin turns his hand over and squeezes his.

Erwin adds, hesitantly, “And you’re not worried that, well, I’m what I am?"

“Should I be?"

“You should be mindful,” he says. “I know myself, I understand my hunger. I ask that you try to as well. For your sake. This...will not always be easy.”

“What? Vampires eat their mate after they fuck?” he blurts out again.

“It’s a bad habit vampires would do well not to even start,” Erwin says. Levi watches the careful flutter of his lashes as Erwin meets his gaze. “I am old and I can control myself. But I _am_ still hungry.”

Levi doesn’t fear it: the inkling of danger lurking about in the darkness, in the corners of his vision, in the deep dark depth of his dreams where Erwin’s eyes are as pitch black as the cavern of his mouth framed by vicious fangs. It’s something else in the abyss that disturbs him, something Erwin had said that night of the lunar eclipse that he can’t quite remember now between the fog of bourbon, and sleep, and the shady blues of Erwin’s look.

“But you won’t hurt me,” Levi says simply. He is not afraid of what Erwin could do. He is afraid of what Erwin could not.

“I won’t hurt you,” Erwin promises and the thought fades out of Levi’s mind before he can dwell on it.

He shivers when Erwin kisses him again, pressing another on his cheek, and a soft lingering one on his neck. His pulse flutters, and he knows Erwin feels it there.

“I also ask that you be honest with me about what you want. I’m a vampire, not a mind reader,” Erwin says. Levi bares his neck more, growing mindless to the slow, shallow pecks and the graze of teeth on his skin. "I can smell you in the bathroom, Levi. I can hear you sometimes, too."

His face turns hot. Of course he can. He can smell Levi pleasuring himself in the bathroom, probably smells the blood in the cracks of his lips when he bites down so hard as he chases a necessary orgasm because sometimes Erwin moves like he doesn’t know how attractive he is and it riles Levi up, annoyed and aroused when he doesn’t know how to go from supple kisses to sex that leaves him blazing from the inside.

Because not much had changed between them - Levi still watches their reflections on store windows and still feels the pull of flesh when Erwin stretches and his shirt pulls up to reveal the smattering of blond hair trailing down from his navel.

“I’m flattered, if that makes you feel any better.” It doesn’t. It makes him want to be swallowed whole into oblivion.

But the question remains and Levi’s inhibitions are lowered enough to ask. "So, this, it's gonna happen?"

Erwin cups his cheek and the heat on his face spreads down his neck, his chest, down to his belly until it coils weakly, fighting against the drunkenness. "Are you backing out now?" Erwin teases. Then adds, more seriously, lower into an almost-purr, "It will, of course. I would like it to."

Levi considers it a generous offer.  A tempting one, because he knows Hange is too deep into her sleep to hear should he decide to take Erwin on his offer. If he decides to push Erwin down on his own bed and hurry past the unsettling moment in between promises and possibilities.

"Like now?" Levi jokes, shakily. 

"Like now," and he catches the sharp upturn of the corner of Erwin’s full lips before he’s overcome with another searing kiss. The hand on his arms grips tighter, suddenly a little desperate, pushing him slowly onto the mattress.

Then he burps. Right into the kiss.

Erwin pulls back, brows raised, licking his lips. Levi is mortified.

“Excuse you,” Erwin chuckles as Levi swats him back to his side of the bed, clutching at the remains of his dignity. He settles right beside Levi instead, pulling the covers over the both of them and a different sort of warmth envelops them.

"Yeah, next time. Besides,” Levi settles back into a deadpan, “I just jacked off in your bathroom." His head is swimming now, drowning in swaying visions of Erwin tracing lazy trails up and down his arm. For a second he thinks he spots the light catch on a shiny point peeking out of Erwin’s mouth. He’s probably drunker than he thought.

"I know," Erwin says, wolfish grin menacing in the dimness, and Levi sees now his teeth are perfectly blunt and straight.

"Oh, fuck you," Levi scoffs and turns over sharply, easing off the weight on his back, still sore from dragging Hange.

"Then whenever you're ready,” Erwin says with another chaste kiss to his neck – Levi thinks Erwin fits so well in that particular crook of his body – his breath fanning across Levi’s skin, sending ripples of goose bumps all the way down his spine. A warm hand flattened on his back meets the wave. The tips of Erwin’s finger grazes the small patch of exposed skin between the waistband of the sweatpants and the hem of the shirt he had borrowed. The contact is electric, current pulsing through his hazy consciousness. “May I?"

Levi nods and flattens his face against the pillow, trying to suppress the memory of their first meeting.

Erwin rubs his back through the t-shirt, soothing a sore spot and Levi considers maybe he's ready now. “Is your back still bothering you? I can have a colleague in physical therapy look at it."

"It's called getting old and rickety, you fool," Levi mutters. "Go to sleep."

There is no hurry, he reminds himself. There are promises of “always” waiting in the morning. For now, they can sleep. He suspects Erwin never does as he falls asleep to senseless patterns traced warm and soft on his back.

* * *

Levi wakes up startled. Erwin’s chin is perched on his hand, the golden stubble on his strong jaw catching on the sunlight and he looks absolutely timeless. He looks like he’s having a grand old time watching Levi sleep, twisted and snuggled in his bed.

“Good morning,” Erwin greets and he smells like he’s already brushed his teeth, likely after an early blood-laced coffee. He sweeps the wayward strands of hair fanned across Levi’s forehead.

Levi is itching again, his body playing a mean tug of war between his dehydrated brain and very quickly wakening cock. It’s too early for this. Too early for Levi to be caught thinking of waking up like this everyday, of collecting on Erwin’s promises, of asking for things too early to even consider. He takes in a deep breath. There is no hurry, he thinks and Erwin looks at him as if there will never be, should never be any hurry.

"What, you dreamed of me or some shit?" he asks instead, voice dragging with sleep. _This damn man_ , Levi thinks begrudgingly fond. How can someone be so pretty this early in the morning?

"Your snoring makes it rather impossible to sleep, let alone dre – " He gets a face full of pillow. "I'm sorry, I was kidding!"

When Erwin laughs and pulls him into a quick embrace, too warm under the sheets and the glow of embarrassment, Levi doesn’t mind so much that this is how they share a bed for the first time. Erwin holds him quietly for just a moment, intimate and gentle, and Levi thinks this moment in between is a little more like a pocket of peace.

“Enough canoodling, I’m hungry,” Hange demands cheerfully from the doorway, hair disheveled but bright-eyed nonetheless. And just like that, Levi finds himself wishing he had more time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> also there's art on chapter 7.
> 
> and come say hi : twistedkit.tumblr.com


	14. Losing Count

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But Time does not forget, especially not creatures like Erwin. She ticks by in cruel mockery—an even one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi—and Erwin is aching, itching to do something, anything because he’s very old and Levi cannot be very old. Only old enough before he—

Immortality has a way of rendering time insignificant, useless in its abundance. Time has no purpose to creatures like Erwin. It leaps forward without consequence, quiet and unnoticed. A month goes by and it could have just been the blink of an eye, a year in the utterance of a name. Three years in one touch, five in one shared look. A kiss and a decade gone.

But when it’s Levi’s lips moving against his, he finds himself counting seconds.

_“Can you take next Wednesday off?” Levi asks. “Not the coming one, the one after that.”_

_They’re tucked in Levi’s couch on a lazy afternoon. Erwin drifts in and out of sleep to the sound of Levi typing because while his body is no longer burdened with fatigue, his brain is racing and racing, counting Levi’s heartbeats from the pulse on his ankle._

_It’s a strangely particular request and Erwin thinks he’s forgetting something, something important lost in the endless string of days._

_“Sure,” he says. “Did you want to do something that day?”_

_“Just thought we could hang out,” Levi shrugs and the conversation is swept away by another wave of typing._

And just like that, the weeks rush away quickly and Erwin wakes up on Wednesday to the click of his front door and the padded footsteps to his bedroom. The side of the bed dips and creaks.

“Good morning,” he whispers before even opening his eyes. He is careful to collect himself because his senses are wild when he wakes up, he can smell the blood rushing on the pulse right by his temple as Levi cards his fingers through his hair. Erwin hungers for what he must because of what he is, but longs for what he mustn’t because of what Levi isn’t.

_How many mornings like this could we have, Levi?_

“Hey,” Levi says, mellow and autumn cozy. He runs his hand through Erwin’s hair, caresses the shell of his ear, leaves a warm trail of his palm down the back of his neck in a lazy pace. Erwin loses count of the seconds it takes to the chill of Levi’s fingertips, the deliberate touches, memorizing pressure and texture and intent.

“Hey,” Levi says again and this time, Erwin opens his eyes. Levi is bathed in soft amber, a cut of the sun streaked on his cheek. “Get up and get dressed.”

They go for a late morning walk, Levi doesn’t say anything about it and Erwin doesn’t ask. He tries to remember what it’s like to have a sense of time ticking away, of having purpose and destinations.

Six blocks in and Erwin realizes that Levi has no particular destination in mind. They weave in and out of streets, like chasing chilly gusts trapped between cold concrete and well-weathered buildings. He follows Levi’s footsteps, dodging oncoming pedestrians with ease, blending in like shadows.

“Come on,” Levi touches his elbow, patiently waiting at the edge of the curb, red-nosed and cold against the wind and Erwin counts three seconds before Levi walks ahead of him, catching the red man blinking on the stop light.

At thirteen blocks, Levi leads him down the concrete stairs to the River Walk. It’s colder here as they stroll close to the rails with the wind carrying the grayish chill of Lake Michigan along the green river before whipping them sharply. Levi huddles closer to him with shrugged shoulders and the upturned collar of his wool coat. Erwin wraps an arm around his shoulders and feels the subtle press of their bodies for six, seven beats.

Fifteen blocks in and they take a break on one of the picnic benches shielded from the gust by the State Street Bridge. It must be lunch; people are taking the other tables and Levi stretches while they sit. They haven’t spoken much but the day doesn’t seem fit for conversation, just accidental touches of their naked hands as they shift in their seats, one second at a time, neither reaching towards each other nor pulling away.

“How long have you been in Chicago?” Levi asks.

They’re both absent-mindedly watching the people walk along the bridge above them, walking to their destinations, catching deadlines and buses, counting down the hours before the work day ends.

“Almost a decade.” It feels like it’s only been a year, like the length of a kiss, the murmur of his name.

“How long do you stay in one place?” Levi asks. Erwin tells him it depends on when people around him start noticing that there are still no lines in the corners of his eyes, that he is still bright and supple with youth even when sometimes he can’t even remember how old he is anymore.

“Why do you ask?”

Levi shrugs and Erwin doesn’t know what to make of it, only worries at what Levi is really asking, and so they walk a few more blocks, following the unchanging flow of the river cutting through the city. A man on rollerblades speeds past them and Levi pulls him just in time to avoid collision. The grip is hard and sure for two seconds, soft for four, then he lets go on the fifth.

_Will we have enough time to make memories to last me an eternity, Levi?_

At eighteen blocks, they make their way back to the main road and end up on Michigan Avenue. Levi pulls them into the Argo Tea at the Tribune Tower, visibly relieved at the warmth. His cheeks are rosy from the wind and Erwin kisses the top of his cheekbone which earns him an even deeper hue of pink. Levi insists on buying him a drink so he gets a sweetened, creamed tea and Levi gets a warm earl grey. He orders a pastry for them to share and they sit on the black marble seats at the Pioneer Court plaza right outside.

He dumps a vial of blood in his tea and Levi tells him he is an idiot for ruining his tea like that, all feigned offense. 

They watch the sun travel between the skyscrapers, shadows chasing light across the busy street, while the constant traffic of people and cars and buses pass them by.

“How old are you?”

Erwin turns to Levi bathing in the early afternoon sun with his eyes closed. “Very old,” he says. “Levi, where are we going?”

“Nowhere,” he says. “We’re just here, I guess. Wasting time. Hanging out.”

Levi gives him a brief assessing look and when he doesn’t say anything, looks out onto the street, past the bridge and the people and cars crossing it, onto the open space between the skyscrapers, and the cream-laden skies.

He watches it happen again, like spring in the middle of fall: Levi’s eyes widen like a bloom of rain clouds, his lips part quietly, and he’s pink and light gray. There must be something Levi sees in the horizon that Erwin doesn’t because clear skies in the middle of October has never left him left him quite so devastated and awed as Levi does.

And it is as if Time had forgotten Erwin in her unending march, no longer expecting him in the far future, just leaving him there in that twenty-eight minute moment in the company of Levi. Levi who looks like he belongs in this moment and in the future, aimless as they are now, but eternal nonetheless.

But Time does not forget, especially not creatures like Erwin. She ticks by in cruel mockery—an even one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi—and Erwin is aching, itching to do something, anything because he’s very old and Levi cannot be very old. Only old enough before he—

Levi rubs his fingers together to get rid of crumbs and, without thinking, Erwin takes his hand and presses a kiss on between sharp knuckles. The gesture is paid with only a raised brow from Levi and Erwin tucks the taste of Levi’s skin in his memory, a precious five-Mississippi moment. 

When they’ve finished their tea, they head south towards Millennium Park where the throngs of people thicken. At twenty-four blocks, Levi reaches for his hand. It’s small and cold in his and he lets go without breaking the electric contact before fitting Levi’s fingers between his.

Twenty-four and a half blocks and he pulls Levi closer by the hand and bows to kiss him. He tastes like earl grey and lemon for the length of the kiss, a whole year, a whole decade could have gone and Erwin wonders how many Levi has left.

“I don’t know why you won't just tell me, old man,” Levi says in the small space between them, noses touching, breath fogging in the dropping temperature. “But happy birthday, anyway.”

Levi chuckles at the way his eyes widen, partly embarrassed that he had forgotten he turns a few short years of three centuries today. He forgets to count the seconds when Levi pushes up from his toes and kisses him again.

Something clicks between their thoughts, between the closed seams of their lips. Something unspoken. Unnamed. Levi’s promise all of his own.

_Just have this._

_This won’t last._

_Then make it count._

Make it count. Make it count. Make it count. Erwin had gotten it wrong. Make it count, make it matter. The seconds have no consequence, because Levi is a force that cannot be measured in the ticking of the second hand, in the phases of the moon or the turn of the seasons. Erwin cannot measure the way Levi’s touch, the almost imperceptible squeeze of his hand, seems to put his pieces in their right places - both man and monster; immortal and unsure - and he finds comfort that Levi fits in the midst of it all.

“Here,” he pulls aways and hands Erwin two envelopes from his coat. “Symphony tickets are from the Dawks. Gift card is from Hange. She told me.”

Levi slips his hand back into Erwin's with ease that seems to render time insignificant, useless.

 So Erwin stops counting and suddenly, the city around him, previously gray and glass, comes to life in grays, creams, greens, reds and reflections. He had gone from counting time that didn't matter to him, to counting Levi's, to just making it count. Erwin makes a note to thank Levi later. It's a beautiful gift.

“And what are you getting me?” he teases. He feels so much lighter, younger. Better. Levi mimics the soft drop of his shoulders.

“I got you tea,” Levi rolls his eyes, small folds on the corners of them catch Erwin’s eye when he smiles. Erwin kisses them. “Let’s head back,” he whispers.

At forty-eight blocks, against the back of Erwin’s door, Levi pulls him down and their lips crash with renewed hunger, new promises, new desperations.

“Erwin,” Levi gasps, his head softly knocking against the wood, Erwin’s lips hungry and wet against the racing pulse on his jaw. “Erwin, touch me.”

And Erwin does, measuring in reverent kisses and slow strokes, roaming and remembering the plains and dips of Levi’s body like the streets of this cold city. 

For the first time in a very long time, Erwin wants memories in Chicago. And somehow he knew many of them will include Levi. Perhaps, all of them would be of Levi, committed to memory not in seconds or decades, but in the meeting of blue eyes and gray, yearnings of flesh and heart, whispers lost in the autumn winds. Pieces of himself held together in Levi's desperate grasp. Years in touches, kisses in decades, Erwin's name broken on Levi's lips echoing into forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For eruri week Day 4: Touch.


	15. Good Old Men

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He is exquisite, overwhelming, and Erwin adores the generosity of Levi’s body, a ravenous kind of love-curse that he cannot escape and will never wish to.
> 
> “I’ve got you.” Levi promises and Erwin surrenders, his old, old heart consumed and safe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Georgia - Vance Joy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0XRlNZbQFE)
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> Thank you to ephieshine and misaya :)

"How does it feel to be thirty-six?" Erwin asks.

"Not bad." Levi says. "How does it feel to be 3600?"

Erwin chuckles and pinches Levi's ear lightly. "Not even close."

They’re in the aftermath of opening presents, sitting on the floor of Erwin’s loft, and Levi is already straightening out the crumpled pieces of wrapping paper. The first blizzard of winter had fallen in the evening and they spent the night wrapped in each other, one for warmth, and the other for comfort. Late morning greets them with Christmas and a birthday cake Erwin hid behind the blood bags in his fridge.

The faux fur throw blanket Erwin had gotten him slips off his shoulder as he reaches for a discarded ribbon and reveals a naked shoulder with a dark bruise Erwin had very carefully kissed on him. He noses at it, quite shamelessly, memorizing the tickling scent of ruptured capillaries just underneath the skin. Levi smells of lemon buried in something earthy, a hint of warm vanilla with a tone of savory, the last trickles of last night’s lust dissolving in his blood. Erwin's throat goes dry as he traces the goose bumps erupting on Levi’s skin until his nose is flat against Levi’s undercut.

Levi reaches behind to scratch his head lightly. Blunt nails against his scalp distract him from his tingling gums.

"I feel old," Levi says after some thought. "But a good kind of old, I think."

Erwin remembers that once he had also been a good kind of old. He had reached thirty-two―old age at that time―with a respectable amount of wisdom and all the adequate accomplishments of a man of his standing. Except he had stopped where Levi is starting now: crow's feet that show when he wrinkles his nose under reading glasses and incessant aches in his back.

Levi is growing old and something twists unpleasantly inside him.

"I told you that shit ruins the drink," Levi turns around, brow raised with subtle concern, studying him and the cup of bloodied hot cocoa in his hand. Erwin wills his expression to soften. "I'm still young. Quit looking so constipated."

Levi is softer too, in the way years make everyone gentle, a far departure from the surly child he first met and the suspicious thirty-five year old he met again. The invitation he had extended to Erwin had somehow made him more receptive of the world he had watched cautiously from a distance. An invitation that had gone both ways, letting things in and letting himself out of the sidelines.

Just last week, Levi had mused out loud if they should go on a trip when the weather warms up. Even suggested that maybe Hange should join them, she could use a break after Erwin works her to new levels of weirdness. What a surprise. He thinks even Levi had surprised himself.

He turns thirty-six today and it places Erwin back to the current of years. There is reason again to measure time, to mark days in the calendar, to make plans. Suddenly, Erwin again has things like _this weekend, next summer, on your birthday. In a few years’ time,_ hopefully.

Things to look forward to.

"Hmm, you're right. Let me taste yours."

Levi offers him his cup of hot chocolate, the top still completely covered with marshmallows. He makes to take it but instead leans in and licks the flavor off Levi's lips. He unfurls easily as if Erwin’s kiss rouses a tempest in Levi: an urgent, ravaging and hungry sort of affection born of passion only mortals seem capable of. The cup ends up next to the plate of black forest crumbs, and Levi opens his arms, wrapping them both in the blanket. The heady taste of Levi’s wet and open mouth, still tinged with rich milk chocolate, consumes Erwin and fills him like a lovely memory.

"You're too sweet for my old heart," Erwin whispers, honestly overwhelmed with the thought of Levi maybe decades from now, softer still with silver hair,  creases around the smile he wears now, and of all the possibilities of witnessing it over and over again.

"Too sappy for mine," Levi snorts. He hopes age will not mellow that strange bite of fondness.

Erwin imagines small slices of the future, the promise of Levi's good old age leaving him feeling a little more like a man and less like an anomaly in time.

* * *

But the future is sometimes equal parts rosy and dark. Erwin almost forgets.

He spends the rest of winter in the basement of Sina University’s Biology Department building. Binders and cans of energy drinks continue to fill the sparse corners of Hange’s tiny office, all filled with observations of a new breakthrough in their work.

He was excited, relieved when Hange called him at two in the morning, frantic and incoherent so that Erwin had to drop by the lab, leaving Levi with a note and plans for freshly brewed tea and bagels in the morning. Hange was running on sugar and adrenaline as she practically bounced on her feet when Erwin examined her work under a microscope.

There it was: the beginnings of a living virus thriving on stem cell cultures. Erwin doesn’t bother asking her where or how she got it, all too relieved, too enraptured by this monumental progress.

Death in a glass slide.

“We couldn’t replicate it before because we were using animals and people,” Hange explained. “Coded with DNA already. This virus is selective, it’s almost like certain hosts could be immune to it. Did you know that? Could anyone turn?”

He thought of it and told her no. He witnessed many die in the midst of turning, children and comrades in times of war and plague turned by loved ones in desperation. Only a few would wake up again with pitch black eyes and new bleeding fangs. Immunity could explain that but they would have to look more into it if needed.

“And the virus, is it―”

“It’s still the strain _you’re_ producing,” Hange supplied him a binder that Erwin studied later. “But from here, I can probably tinker with it so it looks more like your host's but, boss, this could be it.”

She beamed through the fatigue, eyes bright above lavender circles, and Erwin was proud of her, truly. He looked into the microscope again and stared into the smudge of red that could very well be his future.

“This is excellent,” Erwin said, he gripped Hange’s shoulder and saw some part of Moblit Berner in her, a soft glow of triumph. A gift of mercy. “Hange, you are brilliant. Thank you. Thank you very much.”

Hange flushed.

Levi was gone for work by the time he got back. He ate the cold omelette left for him on the kitchen counter and called Levi. I have news, he told him, still thrumming with the prospect of finally finding rest as people were meant to have. _Shall we have dinner tonight?_ Levi spoke above the screech of the train in the background and told him he already had plans with Hange. “I’ll drop by after,” Levi said before hanging up.

When he did, he looked worn. His eyes were bloodshot as usual and Erwin’s heart sank at the possibility that it has nothing to do with the dry winter chill. “She told me,” he said. “That’s good, right?”

Erwin was not sure what to say when Levi’s eyes were downcast; the lift of one corner of his lips a forced sympathy. The sweet promise of eternal peace suddenly felt like a noose around his neck.

But Levi warms up as spring does, slow and gray. He never asks about their research, “I don’t know shit about science and I can only listen to Hange’s lectures for so long.” But sometimes he lingers in the lab, bringing them takeout dinner and tidying up Hange's office while they wear out the fluorescent light bulbs of the laboratory. And Erwin, at the end of long days, finds himself torn between the push of death that stares up at him from glass petri dishes and the pull of Levi, his rougher kisses and tighter embraces, the way he presses the snooze button more and more often when he stays the night, keeping him in bed just a little bit longer.

He finds himself asking where this new promise leaves them.

“I think he misses you,” Hange tells him one day. “You’re not purposely ignoring him, are you?”

So he calls Levi and showers him with affection over the phone with so much uncalled for zeal that it sends Levi chuckling on the other end of the line. His voice lights up and Erwin realizes he misses Levi. Very much.

“You’re embarrassing. What the hell’s gotten into you?”

Erwin imagines him blushing, imagines him relaxed with wine and a soft easy smile, with his foul humor and his hand on Erwin’s cheek. Make it count, he reminds himself.

"We haven’t spent an evening out in a while. Won’t you go out with me tonight? Somewhere nice. We’ll have wine and dinner and it’s warm enough to walk outside. I hear they’ve opened the River Walk again.”

Because guilt makes Erwin overly eager to smooth feathers he's ruffled without meaning to. Levi has had to deal with his thirst, patient at the way he sometimes holds back when Levi is all but pouring himself into Erwin. Neglect at this point is just cruel.

“Sure,” Levi says after a while. He senses the guilt, eager himself to soothe it. “You can pick me up at seven.”

And Erwin forgets. Hange had come across another discovery that day, a step or two closer to getting what they need as they twist and manipulate this virus in petri dishes and test tubes. Tonight, the promise of a long-awaited death makes him forget his own.

When he hears the door of the lab open, he doesn't look up from the notes he's taking. “Hange, I had―”

“I sent her home.” It’s Levi. He shakes his head. “Unbelievable.”

He’s standing at the doorway in a nice coat and Erwin’s coat in his hand. His hair had been slicked back, some wayward strands had fallen around his face from where the gel had worn off, and he is handsome but tired. The crease between his brows is almost imperceptible, like the hurt etched in his expression forcibly flattened down. There’s something else there, too, that he can’t quite decipher. Sharp and raw.

Disappointment.

Erwin rubs his face. “It’s almost ten. I thought you got pushed in the subway or something,” Levi says flatly. Curt. He offers Erwin his coat.

“Levi, I am so sorry I―”

“ _Enough_ , Erwin.”

They take a cab to Levi’s apartment where Erwin can’t wake up in a few hours to pour over the binders of charts and notes now filling his home, too. Levi makes him get in the bath after he’s washed the slick off his hair. There’s no exhaust vent in his tiny bathroom so he keeps the door cracked open while Erwin soaks. It’s enough for Erwin to see the set of his jaw, glimpses of fists resting on the counter while he heats up leftovers in the microwave.

They spend the time in silence, seated opposite from each other on the low coffee table while Erwin eats and Levi drinks his tea. He’s barely done with his last bite when Levi takes his plate away, placing it in the sink with an audible clatter of ceramic and silver wear. Erwin knows better than to occupy Levi’s space right now. He unfolds the couch and sets the bed instead, listening for the softening rattle by the sink.

“Levi,” he starts, carefully. They’re finally tucked in the sleeper couch; Levi’s back flush against his chest as if there is no room left for apologies. Erwin is ashamed at how hard Levi tries to be forgiving. “I apologize. I have not been fair to you and I have given you my word that I’m not keeping well. I am sorry, Levi. That was...that was disrespectful.”

“Yeah, it was,” Levi murmurs. Erwin only then notices how rigid Levi had been when he eases more in Erwin’s arms. The darkness cushions the honesty, not having to look each other in the eye to admit fault and sharp edges of broken promises. “Just…”

There’s a slight tremble when Levi takes in a deep breath, a pause for thought. He sighs. “I don’t know why you’re in such a goddamn hurry. Hange is barely 29, she’s not dying on you anytime soon, unless you work her like this every time. You’re making her crazy.”

Erwin holds him tighter, his forehead pressed on Levi’s nape. He doesn’t understand the sudden calmness of Levi’s tone, the lack of disappointment.

“And if you keep working yourself like this, you might as well give me the money you’re giving Hange for this shit. Easier to kill yourself this way.”

Erwin’s eyes snap open, the realization striking him down. Levi doesn’t understand his want, his need for this. How burdened he is with the centuries etched in him like heavy rings in his bones. But Levi recognizes that he is exhausting himself, even before he recognizes it himself. Erwin is at a loss that in his position, with his immortality and the power it comes with by default, someone worries about him. Cares about his wellbeing. That he cannot be hurt or tired or even killed and yet this mortal man is...scolding him for not taking better care of himself.

Levi turns around in his embrace, sweeps away random strands on his face, slips off the bobby pin in his hair, and rubs a thumb softly on his cheek. He is forgiven, just like that. Erwin kisses him, unable to speak. He is weak with the kindness Levi shows him.

The next day, Erwin wakes up to Levi pressing soft kisses on his belly, perfumed richness of his breath tickling the hair smattered on the swell below his navel.

“Mm, good morning.” He grasps the sheets, the swirl of something animal awakening in his gut.

He catches Levi’s eye before the man kisses lower, toying with the waistband of his underwear. A generous whiff of Levi fills his senses, thick with his own brand of carnal hunger. Perhaps, Levi had really missed him, impatient to consume him.

Erwin is, too. Threateningly so, especially right when he wakes up, human arousal and animal hunger blurred together. He holds on to Levi’s shoulder, hopelessly bucking up towards the breath against him. “Levi, this is dangerous,” he warns weakly. Part of him doesn’t mean it anymore. “Please.”

Levi gets up abruptly, takes something from his fridge, and throws Erwin a bag of blood. His eyes are already pitch black, fangs extended, and Levi looks ready to devour him. He muscles tighten, ready to lunge with the slow and deliberate spiral of his thoughts into nothingness as he punctures the bag, drinking, giving up the hard-held control. The tethers of his humanity come undone almost instantly.

But Levi.

Levi is here. Levi with the low lidded, thick lashed bright eyes, flushed cheeks and chest, flash of gritted teeth. Levi with the promise of good old age. He catches himself.

The blood hits the back of his throat and he tries, fails to clamp his teeth shut when his fangs are in the way. He looks up at Levi now straddling him, lips shiny with spit, and he smells like a proper meal and Erwin wants to  gorge himself, ravage Levi, drain him.

Levi leans down. “Finish it, Erwin,” he tips the almost empty bag back onto Erwin’s lips. “You’ll be okay.”

He is still hungry, probably more than ever with Levi so close to him but Levi doesn’t cower from his bloodied fangs—he marvels at them, reaches down and rubs them, lets Erwin lick the smear off his fingertips. He licks the points of Erwin’s teeth when they kiss, doesn’t flinch when canines graze his bared neck, dangerously and purposefully close to nicking skin. A bold show of trust.

“Careful,” Erwin growls, more to himself. He wants to bite, to tear at the pulse taunting him. He wants to. _He needs to._ He won’t. He doesn’t.

“Don’t have to be,” Levi says, so close to whining it makes Erwin ache all over. “You won’t hurt me.”

The words absolve him of his imagined guilt, of the ceaseless effort to keep himself in check in loving Levi because even now he cannot find it in himself to sink teeth into this flesh, to tarnish this faith Levi had carefully placed in him. When Levi tells him he is good, _so good_ , Erwin allows himself to believe.

Erwin pushes up, up into the small cradle of his hips with so much vigor that Levi tightens his thighs around him to keep his balance. Levi exacts revenge, kissing bruises on Erwin’s neck, licking it. He bites down hard enough that Erwin groans and he can’t help but laugh, raw and smoky. “Silly man.”

“Silly vampire,” Levi smiles against the quickly healing mark he leaves on the slope of Erwin’s neck and shoulder.

Levi may understand little of Erwin’s thirst and the weight of a long life―the dangerous and lonely nature of it―unable to completely grasp it as creatures of different kinds. But his acceptance is so whole and patient that Erwin cannot help but embrace it again. Only this time as fully and as kindly as Levi does. The hunger is no longer an affliction but simply a part of who he is. Cherished and showered with tenderness just as any other part of himself.

They undress and Erwin finds himself anchored to the moment by something other than the desire to tear into flesh. Levi’s touch reminds him of all the things he seems to forget, things other than guilt and death and bone-dry thirst to fill his head, to light his nerves, to spark desire in his spine.

Levi whispers between sighs and bitten moans, “That's good. Fuck. _Erwin_.”

His kisses burn, salty like the glisten of sweat gathered on the hollow of his collarbone, and Erwin drinks it in, intoxicated. The hunger burns holes inside him, like acid in his tendons but it pales in comparison to the frantic beat of Levi’s heart against his ear, the blood thick and lit in his veins. Sticky sweet, full bodied, honeyed lust. It greases the roll of Levi’s hips, smooth and fluid against Erwin’s thrusts, the capillaries breaking and bursting into black cherry bruises on his chest.

He is exquisite, overwhelming, and Erwin adores the generosity of Levi’s body, a ravenous kind of love-curse that he cannot escape and will never wish to.

“I’ve got you.” Levi promises and Erwin surrenders, his old, old heart consumed and safe.


	16. Homeward

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “At least find some place to call home. Mine is where she is. Where is yours, brother?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you to the wonderful ephieshine :)
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> thank you for reading this fic, i am so grateful for your support. your comments always make my day and gets me excited writing this. <3 we're about halfway through!

**17xx, outside Copenhagen**

“I’ve turned someone, brother.”

She didn’t meet his eyes and he assumed they were filled with regret, questions on how to prepare for what it meant. He had no answers no matter how many times he had done and undone it.

Her fangs peeked out as she toyed with the blood-crisp lapel of the soldier writhing on the cot between them. Behind the girl, at the other end of the tent, stood a stranger: a small girl half-hidden in the hood of her cloak. The stranger clasped her hands to her chest, hovering over the other wounded men in the tent as if they had enough strength to leap out of their beds and grab her. When she watched them, her eyes were painfully black, drowned in vampire ink. Hungry.

The air inside the canvas tent was so thick, rich with the smell of blood that he could taste it, like the final bite that undid all the promises of forever as another lover turned mortal again. It shouldn’t make his mouth water, not when the memories attached to it were vile and lonely and fresh, but it did.

The stranger met his gaze and despite her uncertainty, she didn’t shrink under his eyes.

“This one’s almost dead,” the girl in front of him sniffed the soldier on the cot, wrinkling her nose and pulling the freckles across her face into constellations in the dimness.

He shot her a warning look. “He’s not dead yet.”

The girl spat, sneering at the soldier whose eyes widened in fear. “What are you doing here still?” She stepped towards another cot. “You have no home here. Among them.”

He continued suturing the soldier’s gaping wound without responding. _Home_. There is none for vampires like them, he wanted to say. The soldier might be dead in a few hours but he tried to close the wound that’s already too infected to salvage. He hoped to save what little humanity he had left when he felt more like a monster with the blood of a dead lover still sitting in his gut.  Penance was his only steadfast companion. It was the closest comfort he had to what home could have been.

“I am of better use to humanity this way.”

She spat again.

“This one is definitely dead,” the other one announced quietly, leaning over the bandaged face of a man. Golden strands spill from under her hood. “May I?”

He nodded at her and watched as she exposed her fangs and bit at the warm neck of the corpse. She was careful to drink slowly, to clasp her lips tight around the wound. He bit his tongue from questioning the girl’s choice in taking a companion, especially one so small and seemingly too gentle.

But the girl watched the stranger with a rare sort of softness that he had not seen before and recognized it as devotion. Purpose.

And they took purpose from where they can when religion was not enough. Scriptures did not offer guidance to the eternally wandering as even the Israelites found their promised land after forty years. For him and the girl, it had been fifty with only the wilderness in sight. Only oases of bodies for the taking like this one. Prayers did not warm the cold, expired souls that could not rest.

He only worried that this devotion will lead her where it once led him and she will one day face the responsibilities of turning another as he had, with the stranger’s blood in her stomach and her body in her hands.

“It’s their weakness that did this to us, or have you forgotten?”

She said it without looking at him, her voice suddenly tender with bitterness over lost futures and lost peace. He meant to argue but she was right. Even then he knew the vampire who turned them was wrong, selfish. He abandoned both of them as he reclaimed his humanity. He took his peace, his home in a coffin filled with his ashes buried underground. But he robbed them of theirs. Made aimless, wandering children out of them.

She had felt so betrayed, angered by the trap of immortality that she fled and he had not seen her since then. The same betrayal burned in him too, doused with blood of meals and lovers alike for decades. Yet he also understood it. He was starting to feel the weight of time. His own humanity lurked in the shadows, calling him to the earth he should have been buried in.

“You always did toy with your meals,” she scoffed finally. “But now you’re just fraternizing with the cattle.”

He shook his head and laid a gentle hand on the girl’s shoulder. “We were human once, sister, or have you forgotten as well?”

She rolled her eyes. The other girl lowered her gaze and nodded to him before leaving them to their farewells.

“She makes me feel as if I still am,” the girl said quietly, heartbreaking in its gentleness as she looked at him for the first time in fifty years. There was light there. Hope, even, as fragile as it was. She looked away quickly, as if embarrassed. Hope was a luxury for them and she was kind not to flaunt it so easily.

He nodded, smiling.

Before she left, hand in hand with the other girl, she turned to him. She understood so little of his guilt, but the looming, fearsome loneliness freshly etched on his face was still carved in her heart.

“I am sorry about your last mate. I hope that you find what I did as well. Until next time, brother.”

* * *

**20xx, Chicago**

Erwin spots her in the rush hour crowd of Dearborn Street and Jackson Boulevard: a young, petite girl in a long dress with pale golden hair and a soft smile. She crosses the street without looking on either side and lets herself into his open arms.

“We thought we would never find you. What a busy city,” she says, her voice as small as ever. He takes her hands and kisses them when she steps back.

“Historia, you are radiant as ever,” he greets. She pushes up from her toes and kisses his cheek. “How long has it been? Twenty? Thirty years? You grow lovelier every time.”

“Not even a minute and you’re already flirting with her, you bastard,” a voice behind him calls. Smokey and rough, notes sharp and familiar. He turns and there she is, with the curl of her lip and the freckles across her face in an eternal age of seventeen.

“Ymir, it’s good to see you.”

They find a café tucked between the old brick buildings and seat themselves in a quiet corner to discuss what they always do when they cross paths. Old friends, new ones. Never of the past itself, only of the places they’ve seen and people they have met. Some meetings are planned with a letter that somehow finds Erwin wherever he is at that time. Some, like this one, are unannounced but never unwelcome. Erwin is always happy to see Ymir with Historia, always grateful for the hope that grows brighter and brighter in Ymir’s eyes.

“We are getting closer to a cure,” he tells her. They’re both watching Historia chatting with the café manager about their pastries, a gesture to give them privacy. “It’s promising this time. For both of us and whoever may want it.”

“I know. Word travels fast,” Ymir says, linking her hands behind her head and leaning back. “I don’t care much for it, you know that, except to just put you out of your misery already.”

Of course.

“You know why I’m here, brother,” she says. Erwin realizes she doesn’t know what name he goes by this time, reverting to the more familiar address. She was never one to change hers, never having lived among humans.

“I’m surprised you haven’t turned—,” Ymir sniffs. “—him, yet. You’re beginning to smell like cattle.”

The disappointment in her expression is evident, a grimace hidden behind her cup of coffee. Erwin is never sure if it’s disdain or concern.

“I do not intend to bury another mate, sister,” he says.

Ymir only shrugs, as she always does. They could never understand each other, as old and familiar as they are. Ymir’s past is not littered with ghosts; she has never killed a mate, Historia being her only one. All Erwin knows of mates are ones he had wrapped in shrouds himself. She doesn’t feel regret like he does, doesn’t know the taste of a second turn staining the back of her throat. Ymir is blessed with innocence few vampires have the luxury of. She hasn’t taken back a gift she had given.

This is where their conversation usually ends.

But Ymir continues, curious. “You’ve never been one to wait so long.”

He had always been quick to share the rest of eternity with someone who had captured his heart, his soul, his hunger. Yet he feels so much more grounded now with Levi and his slowly failing vision and the crow’s feet on the corner of his eyes when he laughs at Erwin’s displays of affection. Time only ticks quietly in the background. He doesn’t feel hurried and Ymir smirks, picking up on the fact that perhaps Erwin hasn’t given it much thought.

“I have enough ghosts to haunt me, I suppose,” he offers. Ymir hums into her cup.

“It would be the same with this one except you’d bury him sooner. That’s sad, even for you,” she says. “The dead can’t forgive you, brother. But you can.”

Erwin doesn’t say anything further. The topic has been discussed for decades. It’s a tired conversation.

“What would you do if Historia asks?” Asks to be killed, he means.

“She has,” Ymir says.

“And she is still here.” Erwin muses. Historia hears them from afar, turning a smile their way.

“I couldn’t do it so I let her go and she was gone for years. But it’s not like I have anywhere to be, so I waited,” she smiles back, raising her voice a little for Historia’s ear. Ymir softens, it’s a rare sight still.

“Then she came home.”

Erwin thinks of home. When he realized he couldn’t have peace he sought homes instead, thinking it would give him some semblance of rest. So many were built with nails stolen from a lover’s unused coffin, only to be left later with abandoned promises. Perhaps he’s been wrong about it. Maybe home is found.

He thinks of Levi.

“Maybe she’s what you always prattle about. Great love or some rubbish. Either way, I’m glad,” Ymir chuckles before she rises, Erwin following suit. “You said it yourself.  We...” she hesitates but Erwin understands.

_We were human once._

“We can’t have peace, you and I. But we’re not beasts. We’re not meant to be alone.”

For all the ways they are better, they still keep the same yearnings they had been born with. They are not any better or worse than those they feed on. Perhaps worse, in fact, for having to bear it longer than they’re meant to. They wander and they want to rest but never can. They are tired.

She shakes her head then turns to Erwin, patting his chest with a kind touch. Her hand finds his immortal heart, beating with kinship born of this curse. They may not have been born of the same blood, but they were created that way. Inevitably, they grow old much the same, too.

Today, she is old enough to understand.

“At least find some place to call home. Mine is where she is. Where is yours, brother?”

* * *

He shows up at his apartment with a paper bag of sweet butter croissants Historia had insisted on buying for him as an extended gesture of greeting for the man whose fragrance lingers on him.

_"Don't wait too long. He will only be young once," she advises._

Levi is making dinner, sleeves rolled to his elbows, hair pinned back, lips on a wooden spoon coated with bright red sauce while Nat King Cole croons a cool “Unforgettable.” Levi greets Erwin with an embarrassed smile and an offered wooden spoon. He tastes it. It could use some salt.

“I'm home,” he says, licking sauce off his lips. He’s glowing and something feels right about this.

He thinks of Historia and Ymir disappearing into the crowd tonight, hands held together. They don’t belong to each other. They both rightfully belong to the earth, should have been buried and one with it a long time ago, but somehow fate allows them to cheat just a little more.

_Perhaps there is that one great love that would stand time, if given the chance._

“Okay?” Levi frowns at him. The sentiment is obvious, but not for the reason Levi thinks so.

“Levi, I’m home,” he says again, more convinced than ever. He kisses the furrow between Levi’s brows and repeats it in his mind. It’s suddenly funny how he hasn’t realized this before.

The bag crinkles between them and the buttered smell of sweet bread from that day on will remind him of homecoming.

“Okay,” Levi says, a little confused but content anyway. “You’re home, Erwin.”

When Levi’s lease ends in a few months, Erwin will ask him to move in.


	17. Easy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back in their now shared home in the West Loop, Erwin finally takes Levi in his arms and thinks this is the easiest decision he makes. Levi doesn’t need to ask. Erwin will freely share this gift because this time, he is sure it will be different.
> 
> Erwin opens his mouth and he’s all fangs and minty fresh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi again. thank you for your patience.  
> [Easy - Son Lux](https://youtu.be/RqSgSffvFGU)

There is a single silver strand peeking out of Levi’s dark crown. A lonely thing sticking out of his otherwise smooth, straight hair. It catches the light and Erwin is fascinated, caught unaware thinking of how easy this is.

“You’re the only one I’d have the honor of witnessing…ah,” Erwin pauses carefully with a fond smile. “Growing old.”

_Only_. Not first. Not last. Only. Lovely promise, Levi thinks.

“What makes you think I’d put up with your ass for that long?” Levi scoffs into his cup.

They had stopped at The Allis, a posh café with excellent scones and clotted cream, cutting short their afternoon stroll. Levi’s back had been bothering him more often these days and his right leg has been in pins and needles since morning. “I’m getting old,” Levi complains. Erwin, always the gentleman, offers his arm and afternoon tea to soothe his not-so-old bones.

Erwin puts down his cup and takes Levi’s hand instead. “Won’t you, Levi?”

Levi blinks, cup suspended midair. He watches Erwin’s easy smile slowly turn into wide-eyed, blushing realization.

“Oh. Oh that sounded like a proposal, didn’t it?” he chuckles, embarrassed, pink, and sheepish. And yet hopeful.

“Yeah,” Levi says. He averts his gaze because everything tastes too sweet. The tea, the scones, the words. “Sure.”

There’s a moment of silence—joyful, peaceful silence then, “Levi, did you just—”

“Yep.”

Levi is easy to love, Erwin realizes.

After centuries of affairs resting on the promises of forever in its most literal form, here is Levi who asks not for immortality but for a quiet life and extra cubes of sugar in his tea.

Love, for the first time in decades, is no longer a burden. It’s a struggle for him not to burst into unhinged happiness, to not reach across the table and keep Levi in his arms for as long as Time allows. There is time, enough of it, later.

For now, they have afternoon tea to enjoy.

“Drink your tea before it gets cold and quit looking so pleased with yourself,” Levi says. “Don’t take your time though. We need to make this official and I’m not getting any younger here.”

Back in their now shared home in the West Loop, Erwin finally takes Levi in his arms and thinks this is the easiest decision he makes. Levi doesn’t need to ask and doesn't need to suffer his impatience any longer. Erwin will freely share this gift because this time, he is sure it will be different.

Erwin opens his mouth and he’s all fangs and minty fresh.

“Wait,” Levi says, snickering, because Erwin would be the kind to brush his teeth before turning him with a bite to his neck. “Wait. Do we just do this? As in you just bite a chunk off my neck? No foreplay or nothing?”

Erwin laughs, shaky, forehead nestled in the crook of Levi’s neck. His eyes are pitch black shadows under the hair that had fallen over them.

“One, I will not _bite a chunk off_ anything. Two, if you’d like foreplay, I'm happy to oblige.“

He slides his hand down Levi’s thigh and kisses his shoulder. His vision tunnels, something animal uncoils quickly in his gut. Levi says something but all is lost to the fragrance filling his head. He’s close to a vein. He drools on Levi’s shoulder.

"Erwin.” It’s gentle. Levi’s lips are on the shell of his ear. “Hey, easy.”

Erwin backs off. “I’m sorry. Levi, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to–”

Levi plops back down on to the pillows and drapes an arm across his face. His hair fans out on the sheets, black like the empty night sky with grey shooting stars.

“Don’t be. I'm just thinking.“

"Tell me, Levi. If this is not what you want, if you’d prefer to live your days—"

“What?” Levi interrupts. “What? No. I just bought these sheets and they’re pricey as fuck. I’d really rather not bleed on them. Get up. We’re doing this over the tub.”

They stare at each other, not moving, before bursting into laughter. How silly everything is before they plunge into what now seems to be the easiest thing to do.

Levi makes it easy. He whispers in Erwin's ear, strokes his cheek, offers himself. He’s good. This will be good. It’s okay, Levi says. Everything will be okay.

He starts to salivate like an animal in heat, in hunger, in love, and Levi gently coaxes him closer and Erwin doesn’t have enough space in his head to cage the anticipation. It’s always the damn hunger and he can’t decide anymore if he wants to consume Levi in kisses or in bites.

So he lets Levi decide for them. Levi cranes his neck, a beautiful plane of skin for the taking. _His_ taking. Bites, it is.

Erwin unwraps him, pulling Levi’s shirt off by the back of his collar, knuckles grazing against the dip of his spine, teeth dangerously close to his skin. He smells like sex and love and blood and he flinches when a drop of saliva makes first contact.

It’s not the first time Erwin wishes this didn’t hurt but it is the first remembers it to fill him with so much joy, a great sense of gratitude for inflicting pain—for someone welcoming the pain and promising him things he's only promised himself before. A gift he is happy to forever be thankful for. Levi grunts when Erwin punctures his flesh. Erwin tries to tell himself he’ll be quick before his vision darkens and he lets Levi coat the inside of his mouth, his throat, inside where the darkness resides.

But the taste of it hits the back of his throat like battery acid and he sputters it out, bright red spatters against Levi’s shoulder. A drop of it trapped on the tips of his eyelashes and they look at each other, both suspended in something too early to name.

“Erwin? What is it?”

Levi is his future—all versions of him: forever this way or with silver streaks in his hair, wire-rimmed glasses, a joke about not being able to get it up anymore. But right now, Levi is young and darling and wide-eyed, and all Erwin can see is the past, ghosts taking claim of what has always been rightfully theirs. Immortal as he is, Erwin is powerless against him now, beautiful Levi and the taste of his blood wrapped desperately in the webs of Fate.

With the familiar taste of decay in his mouth that marked the illness that took Moblit from Hange, he remembers that nothing is ever quite so easy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> also, ras_elased called it back in the chapter 6 comments. lol.


	18. Blindness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Levi, are you sure about this?”
> 
> For himself, not so much. For Erwin, absolutely.

If immortality has a way of rendering time insignificant, too abundant to tack any single moment memorable, then by inverse proportion mortality has equal capacity of rendering time significant. Too significant perhaps, that all things and all moments have equal and great consequence. When a person is young and vibrant and the end is nowhere in sight, they might as well think themselves immortal as most human beings do. Erwin and Levi had thought themselves the masters of their fate. They are so easily blinded. 

“Holy shit, will you get off me? I can walk,” Levi says, without heat, as he steps into the car. Erwin waits at the curb until Levi straps himself in.

His veins are thick with poisoned, muddling whatever relief is there. And while sitting for four hours in a stale smelling clinic did not do wonders for the still healing scar on his lower back, it wasn’t as bad as he expected. Though now it’s slightly dampened by Erwin’s creased forehead.

Levi takes a deep breath. Then another. He can't find his center. He wonders if medicine is fucking with his balance.

“I know, but please take it easy,” Erwin pleads, closing the door for Levi. When he buckles himself in the driver’s seat, he takes a moment and turns to Levi. The man’s face is as calm as ever and Erwin feels the same stunted relief in his own veins. Until he notices Levi clutching his blanket, his fingers sinking into the faux fur. Christmas feels so far away now.

He reaches out and covers Levi’s hands with his own, vibrating with worry.

“Levi?”

Levi opens his mouth, as if to talk, and closes it again. He swallows and suddenly, there it is: the prick of tears in the back of his throat. If he speaks, his voice will break.

* * *

They had met with Darius Zackley, one of the best oncologists in Trost Memorial Hospital and a new colleague of Erwin's, a couple of weeks after he had patched the punctures on Levi’s neck and told him as gently as he could that his blood had tasted strange.

Levi was calm when he explained that Moblit’s blood had the same distinct taste. It made Erwin sick, not because of its putrid note like fine wine mixed with spoiled milk, but because his immortality had made him arrogant. He called on Zackley later that day to set the appointment for Levi.

Pancreatic cancer, Zackley told them, has spread to Levi's spine and to his lungs. The pain in his back was a massive tumor rapidly growing and pushing itself against his spine. Levi glazes over his scans, imagining alien life forms taking residence in his gut.

Erwin nodded along with one hand on Levi’s incessantly bouncing knee. They discussed the current treatment plan they plan to go with, side effects, Kaplan-Meier survival curves, alternatives. Erwin did not miss a beat. Levi was almost impressed. For every one of Zackley's suggestions, Erwin had three more that he had researched beforehand.

But everything went over Levi’s head. They talked of medicine with too many x’s in the names, parts of him to cut and sever, like he was a case report in a _You're Going to Die 101_ class, and all he could pay attention to was the pile on Zackley's desk with all of his scans and charts and things about his body that felt suddenly distant to him. It had been a disorganized mess barely contained in an overfilled manila folder.

Things spun and Levi had gripped onto his chair. Erwin’s hand on his leg had started to feel less comforting and more controlling. Nausea hit him.

“What does this mean?”

Zackley and Erwin stopped to turn to Levi, looking at him as if unaware he’d been there the whole time. “I mean, what does this mean that it’s spreading?”

Erwin turned to him fully, face softened. It was condescending almost. “It means it’s metastasizing and—“

“Yeah, I know. You told me that already. I mean what will happen now? What are my chances with this chemo?” Erwin’s hand was no longer on him and Levi found himself wringing his hands together.

“It means that with this treatment, we can extend your life expectancy from 6 months to about a year if the treatment works,” Zackley said.

Levi excused himself and threw up in the men’s restroom.

He woke up after surgery a week later with Hange’s hair matted between his fingers and Erwin nowhere in sight.

“Hange.” His throat was dry. “Wake up.”

And Hange did, unusually quiet when she greeted him. “Erwin must be talking to your doctors,” she said, Levi’s hand between hers. He was surprised that they’re soft but too exhausted to comment. “You don't look so good. You want some water? I can call Erwin, hold on.”

Levi managed to squeeze his hand enough to root Hange to the spot, half risen from her seat beside his bed. “What is it? Are you okay? Where does it hurt?”

“Everywhere. Can I have some water, then come back here.” Levi said. Hange helped him sit up to sip some water until he groaned. He could feel the sutures on his lower back pull and there is a bone deep soreness inside him. Now his whole body felt alien and he can’t remember if he’d ever felt well in his entire life.

“Tell me about the drugs.”

Hange tilted her head to the side. “What drugs?”

Levi barely eeked it out of his desert throat. “The chemo ones. And tablet. Radiation. Tell me what you know.”

If he had enough energy, Levi would panic with the look Hange gave him. “Levi, you do know what they’re going to give you after, right?”

She rose, reluctant to let go of Levi’s hand, before grabbing his charts at the end of the bed. She read quietly through it, flipping the pages back and forth.

“Okay, you’re going on Gemzar with Abraxane after. That’s chemotherapy. Then you’re also gonna be on Afinitor, that’s the tablet. And,” she frowned. Levi remembered discussing this with Zackley and Erwin before the surgery.

“Levi, you’re also set for a radiation treatment plan. Did you agree to this? Did Erwin?”

He knew the side effects, or at least enough of what he figured he needed to know. He’d lose his hair, he’d throw up, maybe he’d shit water for weeks on end, he’d be tired. But he might get better. Zackley told him he can stretch his 6 months to one year with all of this. Erwin, surprisingly, had not said anything, only squeezed Levi's hand in his. He took that as enough of hope and signed his life away to science. 

Erwin had been supportive and he trusted Erwin. He was a doctor.

“Yes,” he said. He didn't like the taste of sand and regret in his mouth. “Just. Refresh my memory, Hange. Please.”

Hange put down the charts and caressed his forehead. She looked pained. “Okay then. This is too much, and there are other options.”

They don’t have time for this, Levi thought. He is banking on Hange’s painful memories that she will understand, the she will remember what it was like to fight for someone to live. He hoped that she will fight for him and not with him. But he didn't say anything. He'd never been one to ask.

“Okay,” Hange sighed. As if Levi isn’t hurting enough, his chest ached, too.

Hange goes on a two-hour lecture on Gemzar-Abraxane cocktails, chest catheters for chemotherapy, skin irritations from radiation therapy, and what color and smell of diarrhea is normal and which is cause for concern. He let her hold his hand even after Erwin had checked in on him before finding Zackley for another consultation. She took notes of her own.

Science was always a salvation, he thought. Something settles unpleasantly when she didn't look convinced.

“You're not coming out of this alive,” Hange said. His hand twitched in hers. "All this. You'll be more miserable than you are now. Are you sure about this?”

For himself, not so much. For Erwin, he feels obligated to try.

* * *

 “Levi, are you feeling okay?”

Levi purses his lips, still staring straight ahead. Erwin’s throat is filled with broken glass.

“Hey,” Levi says. “What if this doesn’t work? Could we try the whole vampire thing again?”

Erwin almost says yes right then because he, for all his centuries and the deaths he had brought, does not know what else to say. Only that he doesn't know how to save Levi. He is unconvinced, like Hange, and one cannot be a vampire for as long as he had been without knowing the countless efforts to cure such illnesses. And the failures of it.

It is not the right time to confess that he had turned Moblit and it is this curse that had accelerated his disease and ultimately killed him.

He closes his hand around Levi’s, squeezing a little too hard, and asks how Fate can still take Levi away despite how tightly he holds on.

“This will work, I know it.” Love is sometimes man gouging his own eyes out.

Erwin’s heart breaks. “If it doesn’t?”

“Everything will be okay,” he lies. Levi knows. But it’s enough to get them through the ride home.


	19. Human Errors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It is a failure of sorts to be human; to be at the mercy of aging and illness, weak to doubts, easy to crumble. Erwin curses that part of himself now, the part Levi had gently reawakened–the part that cannot save him. The part that cannot come to terms with it.
> 
> [Slow Dancing in a Burning Room - John Mayer]

This time, Erwin doesn’t follow Levi into the men’s bathroom outside of Zackley’s office. He stands outside patiently, helplessly while Levi retches into the nearest empty stall. Erwin doesn’t even come in when ten minutes later, Levi still hasn’t come out. He aches to go when he hears sobbing. But he remains outside, eyes glazed over Levi’s most recent scans in his hands. The edges of the scans crumpled in his hold.

The cancer is spreading.

“What can you do,” Levi announces in the car. Erwin keeps his eyes on the road.

“We can try other treatments,” Erwin responds to nothing in particular. Centuries of medical education and practice, immortality at the end of his fangs, and Erwin has nothing helpful to offer.

Levi is asleep first that night and Erwin takes vigil, not on purpose. It seems nothing has changed since that day he had bitten him. Levi still snores and lays like a corpse on his belly. Erwin plays with his hair and it’s one o'clock when he closes his eyes. He opens them again and Levi is up getting ready for work.

How frightening it must be to be human, dependent on science and sanity. No wonder many cling to religion, some mystic system to save the self, the body. To rely on one’s own strength despite impending death, most not knowing when it might come, to face the day as if it is the last while hoping against hope that it will not be.

* * *

Erwin spends just as much time out of their home as before, but he’s beginning to put in less hours at the hospital and more hours in the lab with Hange. He’s rich with old money inherited from all the names he had forged; he’s not worried. He is anxious. This illness cannot be beaten. And Levi’s beating him to death and he is taking too long to die.

He gets short with Hange.

“Stop torturing him,” she urges, angry. They are again in familiar territory. “I’m asking you to let it go, Erwin. Quit trying to shove all this chemo down his throat. It’s not working and you know it.”

“Weren’t you the one who had begged me to save Dr. Berner?”

She cries at one point and instead of apologizing he tells her he turned Moblit.

“Just like you asked,” Erwin doesn’t even look up from the microscope. “And it killed him. Don’t you think vampires before me would have tried to cure cancer before myself? Of course they have. This virus is not a toy—it works with the disease and accelerates it. Why do you think I was hesitant to turn Moblit? Yet I tried, on your suggestion, Hange. The results were the same. Kindly take out the samples from the file, please.”

Hange leaves for the night and doesn’t show up at the laboratory for a few days. When she returns, they don’t speak outside of research and blood supplies.

The non-fight there becomes a fight at home because Levi might be sick, but he is himself nonetheless. Hange calls him and he listens from his chair in the chemotherapy clinic, itching to rip the needles off him.

He’s just tired from the clinic and the seven giant pills he has to swallow twice a day, Erwin thinks. With all the yelling between them, he pretends not to hear the quiver in their voices.

“The fuck is wrong with you?” Levi spits, taking the pills Erwin hands to him on a paper napkin.

“You’d like me to turn you then? I already explained that won’t work,” Erwin hands him a glass of water. Levi ignores it and swallows the pills dry.

“It’s Hange. Jesus fucking Christ, you could show a little gratitude,” Levi says, his voice has gone dark. He doesn’t burst in anger anymore but nothing has changed. Erwin is still inhuman and Levi is terribly so.

Blame, after all, is a human design. To find someone, something responsible for the fault and Erwin despises it. Blame is a contagion, it jumps from one host to the nearest one, ravaging anything and everything in its path like Hange and himself and Levi and all the things that surround them. They sleep without speaking and it’s three o'clock before Erwin falls asleep. On purpose, perhaps. He dreams of the city burning to the ground.

* * *

 

“Seriously, get the fuck out of my face.” Levi shoves at him. Hard.

Even in the blur of frustration, Erwin takes comfort that at least Levi still has his physical strength. Perhaps the treatment is working again. How could it not? They’re at chemotherapy every week and Levi’s belly is burnt to a crisp with radiation. Zackley has changes his medicine doses to the point that Levi’s weight is mostly bones, worry, and water he’s waiting to shit out. It’s only a matter of time.

Levi snatches the blanket from Erwin and plops down on the couch, covering himself. He’s too warm and have gone down too violently that he rolls over to the edge of the couch and throws up on the floor. His nose drips with sick and tears.

Erwin drops to his knees and kisses his temple. “It’s okay, I got it.”

“This won’t last, just leave.” Levi whispers. But Erwin is filled with hope so looming it’s starting to look like ego.

“How dare you,” he seethes suddenly, rising so quickly he’s dizzy. For a moment he sees Levi smothered with his blanket. Kicking from under it, pale. Dead. “How dare you think that would be easy for me. Here I trying to save your life. Damnit, Levi. How dare you think so little of me.”

No one asked you, Levi murmurs. Erwin yells over the TV. He had never felt so small in his life.

Levi barely spares him a look. He means to be cruel because he can be. The truth, they have to accept, prevails over both of them.

“I have cancer, Erwin. Get the fuck over it.”

They glare at each other because no one else is there to be angry with. The disease turns violent, eating away at Levi’s insides and at Erwin’s resolve.

Only on Erwin’s third bag of blood does he join Levi in bed. He’s asleep and Erwin watches, waiting for him to wake up so they can make peace. He can’t remember when he falls asleep, only that he wakes up and Levi is awake, lying on his back beside him.

“I’m dying, I think,” Levi says.

It is a failure of sorts to be human; to be at the mercy of aging and illness, weak to doubts, easy to crumble. Erwin curses that part of himself now, the part Levi had gently reawakened–the part that cannot save him. The part that cannot come to terms with it.

“You are.” Erwin kisses him good morning.

Levi doesn’t make it past the toilet, filling with bile and more tears, before he decides to call in sick for work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In hopes of not spoiling the ending and for my own preferences, I have not included a tag for how the story will conclude. For those who have followed this story to this point, that may be obvious now. As a disclosure for the whole thing, I do try to be "realistic" with this fic in the sense that not all stories go or end happily or unhappily. Levi is terminally ill, there is no way to make this pretty or comfortable without taking away the reality of how they might come to terms with it. There will be pain but I don't hope to write it for pain's sake but to see how Erwin, Levi, and Hange will react to it. Think of it as a character study, maybe. Or maybe as a challenge to myself, and to you, to find some solace in their love.
> 
> That being said, I understand if you choose to leave this fic here. I tried to write most chapters in a way that you can leave at the end of it and it will have been a sufficient view of their lives and can be read as an ending. Thank you again for your continued support and your patience for the updates on this piece.  
> -A


	20. Fleeting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I don’t need you to be my doctor right now, Erwin. I’m not going to get any better. I just need you to be here for me right now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mono no aware, literally "the pathos of things", and also translated as "an empathy toward things", or "a sensitivity to ephemera", is a Japanese term for the awareness of impermanence or transience of things, and both a transient gentle sadness (or wistfulness) at their passing as well as a longer, deeper gentle sadness about this state being the reality of life.
> 
>  

Peace is hard to come by these days. Between the constant hum of machines at the chemotherapy clinic, to the nervous tick in Hange’s voice over the phone, to Erwin’s shuffling about in their apartment to wait on him hand and foot, Levi finds so little quiet. It’s a tiny ringing in his ears that floats above all the other discomforts of this body that feels less and less like his own.

So when he gets the apartment to himself for the evening, he takes a breath so deep it threatens to burst his lungs open and crack his brittling ribs. He is growing weaker by the day, and soon enough, he knows he will be helpless. For a moment he thinks of calling Erwin home - a moment of weakness he is not yet ready to have. He leaves the cooking to his favorite Chinese restaurant and orders food for delivery instead.

But this, a bath, he can do. He is miserable but he can do it at his leisure. There is relief in being able to groan in pain when he tries to twist the faucet open, with no one barging in, worried sick, to let out the building steam. The bathroom grows warmer, mirror fogging, and Levi catches a glimpse of his face. He had grown so old in such a short time, pallid and gaunt.

The quiet is broken again when he throws the toilet cover shut to sit on it. Dizziness finds him often these days. Every task takes great effort as if Levi has to go about his day carrying dead weight. His own weight, foreign to himself. It is a wonder he had lasted so long at work without getting sick all over his desk. Nile, surprisingly, had been gracious when he handed in his two weeks’ notice. They had heard the news from Erwin, and Marie had sent him off with a basket full of bath bombs from Lush, now displayed on their counter.

Levi studies them, bringing them one by one to his nose, wondering how long each will soothe him. A shot of lavender, of rose, of honey fills him but still the pain hovers like the sound of running water. He can no longer tell where it hurts. Everything hurts as if he had been walking for days on ends but cannot stop.

He hums, thoughtful, before chuckling. “Yolo.”

Three bath bombs plop into the hot water and Levi watches it turn blue, pink, and glitters.

It is an unpleasant process to get into the bath. Levi undresses slowly, his hand tracing protruding bones on his shoulders, his ribs, trying not to wonder how his insides are colored now. The skin on his belly crumples a leathery chestnut, always tender. Down his lower back is a healed scar. His hips jut out. His knees shake as he steps out of his pajama bottoms. His toe nails have lost luster, peeling at the edges, cuticles dried.

His body crumbles, like an abandoned painting. But the brightly colored water promises a little bit of life. So with a firm grip on the lip of the tub, he lowers himself in.

Levi reads more often these days. There is not much else to do that doesn’t leave him lethargic. They didn’t warn him that it’s not just his body that goes to shit. It’s his mind, too. Things become harder to remember, or perhaps, he just cares less to remember. Illness breaks the spirit, most of all, and not just of the afflicted but everyone else it seems.

But the initial heat embracing his entire body reminds him of something he had read recently. Some Japanese term that had resonated with him. He spent an afternoon looking it up online, finding stories and poems of the same theme, finding small parts of himself in each. Some fragments of a time in the recent past when he had been comfortable in his own bones.

He catches the last ends of the word, he is energized, and the glorious moment fleets away quietly leaving him tired and forgetful again. Small things, he reminds himself, matter so much nowadays. Even a fleeting moment is enough to remind him who he had been before Erwin.

When had he started clutching on so desperately like this? He had lost part of tissue and tranquility to the disease. It whips him scared with violent tenacity. Why? He had perfectly been carefree before, satisfied with all his misfortunes, and grateful for his small fortunes. Levi dips lowers into the water, bubbles errupting in front of his face in a surge of surprised laughter.

Love. It had made him like this. Desperate for more time, hungry to live longer if not forever, not necessarily for Erwin but for himself. He wants for more, for better. How curious that selfishness becomes a means of survival. And for Erwin who can survive through it all, selfishness becomes self-preservation. Protection. Suddenly, Erwin's old penance makes so much sense again.

Clarity, Levi remembers, are found in moments of peace like this. _Small things_ , he smiles to himself again.

He cards through his hair and a clump falls away. There are delights in the privacy where he can laugh at it his own situation.

“Levi?” There’s a gentle knock on the door before Erwin peaks in. Levi brings his hand underwater, stray hair with it.

“Welcome home,” he smiles. Erwin’s eyes widen. It is a rare thing these days, too, and Levi has to stop himself from wincing at his own cruelty of late. But he is grateful that Erwin smiles back. He misses these moments, and aches knowing that they are fleeting, too.

“Are you okay?” Erwin moves to step inside. “Do you need help?”

“I’m good,” Levi says too quickly. Defensive. He retreats back into himself, slowly, settling. He repeats, more gently. “I’m okay, really. How’s your day?”

Erwin sits on the toilet, awkwardly reaching for Levi and settles for a hand on the tub. Levi, not ten minutes ago, would have failed to notice this small gesture of apology, of affection. But Levi now doesn’t hesitate to rub his wet cheek on it.

“It was uneventful,” Erwin says, absentminded. The past months have been sour and Levi, with his cheek warm on his knuckles, is a strange sweetness. It is almost as if Erwin had not tasted the bitter note in his blood and he lets himself wonder. Wonder quickly dissolves into worry. His hand finds the wet ends of Levi’s hair. “Are you all right? You could’ve called me, I would have--”

Levi pulls back, agile with the little strength he has. He looks Erwin in the eyes and his breath, he swears, is taken away. It could’ve been his withering lungs. It could’ve been the softness in Erwin’s face, the intensity of his gaze, the set of his jaw.

A clump of hair caught on Erwin’s fingers catches his attention. Erwin had noticed too.

“Hey,” Levi takes the hand, the hair, the worry in his own. “It’s just hair.”

Erwin breaks the eye contact. Ashamed. Guilty. And in a sick way, his guilt brings Levi back completely to his old self, the version of himself who finds such grievances unnecessary. He cleans the hair off and reaches for Erwin’s hand again. It’s strange that their fingers no longer intertwine together naturally. But through bony knuckles and clammy palms, Levi fits them together.

“I’m sorry,” Levi doesn’t know where to start. How does one navigate this part of life? Would even someone like Erwin know? “I’m sorry. I don't how to do this.“

Erwin falls to his knees, the poor man. Levi’s heart breaks open, blooms.

“I can’t do this without you,” Erwin whispers, his forehead on the porcelain. It is half a lie. Erwin will live on, he is bound to. He has survived this many times and will survive it many times more. Levi is but a blink in his story. And yet, the words shift the earth beneath them.

“Good thing I’m still here, huh?” Levi is awkward with comfort. But they need this. He needs this. “Look at you, I'm not even dead yet and you're already falling apart."

Erwin doesn’t respond.

This pain, too, is fleeting and Levi hopes for the best for Erwin. They are both tired of fighting. Levi lays a hand on Erwin's head until he looks up. Erwin's eyes are soft and so full of warmth and begging. Levi kisses him and Erwin smiles. He hopes that at least this part will be eternal.

“I don’t need you to be my doctor right now. I’m not gonna get any better. I just need you to be here for me.”

Erwin shifts and peace descends like an old friend.


	21. Creatures of Fear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A creature without death is a creature without fear, and yet, Erwin trembles. 
> 
> "Good, fear makes you human.”

Levi doesn’t try to get to know the other patients in the chemotherapy ward. He assumes many of them aren’t thrilled to be there either and just want to be left alone while they get stuck with needles, fighting off nausea and fatigue and death. There are familiar faces, of course. Familiar voices. They come and go until they stop coming. Levi doesn’t wonder if it’s for better or worse, too busy trying not to think about when and why he’ll stop coming here eventually, too.

But Isabel Magnolia is a different story.

“So, is it too morbid if I include the cancer thing for Sina University?” she asks him one day over the shoulder of the nurse sticking a large needle in her chest catheter.

Levi spares her a look over his book. He’s hoping she’s not talking to him.

“Or do you think that gives me extra brownie points? You know, like _oh this girl is a fighter, let’s admit her because she’ll be dead by the next semester anyway_ ,” the girl continues. Levi is about to go back to his book, in the effort to keep to himself, but she is very clearly speaking to him. “Or is that too desperate?”

The nurse smiles at her and tells her it’s admirable. Isabel beams up at her with a tight-lipped smile as thanks and Levi almost snorts at how fake it is. When the nurse goes back to her station, Isabel leans towards Levi and whispers, “She’s just being nice, right?”

Levi doesn’t even look up. “Yep. And yes, the cancer thing is desperate. Go with it.”

She gives him a thumbs up, pulls up her laptop and starts typing.

Isabel Magnolia is a high school junior, head of the debate team, Mathlete, and track and field varsity. She comes bounding in the chemo ward one day with bright red hair that, according to her, she bribes her brother to touch up for her every few weeks because it’s hard to keep it vibrant. Since then, the place hasn't really been quiet anymore.

Levi doesn't start paying attention to her until she starts talking to herself while typing on her laptop.

“Hmm, this place is all about medical specialties, I should beef up the chemo thing,” she says one time. Levi, who had sat next to her, raises a brow at her. She notices she’s attracted attention and seemed happy about it. “Sorry, I’m writing for my college application.”

Levi hadn’t known how to respond.

Until it kept happening and Isabel’s loud musing became more and more outrageous.

“Maybe I should quit it with the sick girl approach. It sounds like a sob story and I don’t want to come off all sad. I should go with the _, this disease gave me a fresh new perspective in life_!” she says.

“Like you’re about to die?” Levi blurts. Before he realizes his own words and thinks of apologizing, Isabel starts to laugh.

“Oh god, I should write that down. That’s funny.”

Her older brother, Farlan, doesn’t think it is. To be fair, Levi thought the boy doesn't think a lot of things funny. There’s a calmness in him that looked forced, severe. Every time he comes to pick her up, he stands by the nurse’s station with a straight posture and a straight expression.  A clear contrast to his bright sister. One time, Levi asks her what’s up with him and sees for the first time, a mellow Isabel.

“He thinks I should give it a break,” she says, not meeting his eye. “You know, focus on my recovery and stuff. I think he’s just scared I’m getting my hopes up for college.”

“Are you?”

“Is it so bad? If I get accepted, then I’ll have something to do after I get better. If I don’t, then maybe I’ll die,” she says.

“I meant, are you scared?”

After a long time, Isabel responds. “Sometimes. Hmm, I should write about that!”

A small part of Levi makes a note to ask her how she goes about that.

* * *

“So where’s your girlfriend, huh?” Hange nearly throws herself over the arm of Levi’s chair, almost pulling a tube out from his arm.

Levi flicks her on the forehead. On occasion, Hange visits Levi in the clinic while he gets his treatment. She passes the time telling him about her work, sometimes she brings food even though technically, she’s not supposed to. But mostly, she’s just there to keep Levi company although it’s not really for his benefit.

“Don’t you have better things to do?” Levi asks her, noticing she’s more quiet than usual. “Like washing your hair.”

The way her eyes travel to his strikes something uneasy inside him, like being caught unprepared for something he should be prepared for. Something he has grown to expect, but dread nonetheless.

“I’ll miss you.” She says simply.

“I’m not hanging around to haunt your messy office." He goes back to his book, the letters on the pages shaking in his vision, words rattling inside him. The chair creaks with Hange's weight on it. "I’ll donate my body to science. I don’t know, you can tinker with it or something. Keep my memory fresh. Stop crying.”

But Hange doesn’t. She just laughs at herself, wiping her nose on her sleeve. Levi frowns at her and shoves a box of tissues in her hand. They let it go unacknowledged that Levi's hand is on her arm because to acknowledge anything further than the break in her breath and the scratch in Levi’s throat would be too much.

“I never got to say goodbye to Moblit, you know.”

“I’ll call you when I’m about to die.”

Hange nods and if it wasn’t for the needle buried in Levi’s arm and the fact that it’s not something they do, they would have embraced. He thinks maybe he could use it right now. He'll ask Isabel later how she writes about fearing this sometimes.

Outside the ward, Erwin runs into Hange.

She nods at Erwin’s direction before turning to leave. Erwin fights the urge to look away. Enough time has gone by for him to realize how cruel he had been.

“Hange,” he manages. “Do you have a moment?”

She turns and tilts her head at him, smiling easily. Erwin scrambles in his head for a start—of which to apologize for first, to which shortcoming of his to admit to, to which of her kindness he should thank her for first. But she beats him to it with a hand on his arm.

“It’s okay, boss.” Her hair is loose around her face today, softening the sharpness of her cheekbones, probably an attempt to hide. Her eyes are red. “It’s hard on me, too, and this is only my second time around. Unlike you.”

Erwin chuckles. He is still undeserving of such easy forgiveness.

“I’m sorry, too,” her hand clenches on his arm and it feels less like an apology and more like condolence.

* * *

It’s not long before Isabel stops coming, too. Levi hopes it’s for the better until her brother comes to the clinic and asks to speak with him.

“She passed away last week,” Farlan says. He sounds tired. The weakness in his voice sounds like a lullaby and Levi is a little too distracted to remember who Farlan reminds him of.

Levi mutters his condolences, caught by surprise by his sudden urge to be alone. Perhaps it’s the feeling of brushing closer and closer to the moment he’ll stop coming here, too. Dread settles.

Farlan brings him back to the moment, handing him an envelope with his name written on the flap.

“She finally finished her essay,” he says. Levi is already reading the contents of the letter. “She said you were helping her out with it. And—And I, um. I don’t…”

His voice trails off. Farlan’s shoulders shake with the sadness of an old man. Levi’s eyes mist, too.

“You, uh, have a pen on you?” he asks Farlan quietly. The boy startles and fumbles with a pen from his pocket. He watches through tears as Levi scratches through the letter, making marks on it. Some confusion manages to make its way on to his face, despite how red and crumpled it’s become.

After a while, Levi hands the letter back to him. He doesn’t take it first, knowing his sister had left it to this man who she’d spoken of quite fondly for months. Levi pushes it to his hands.

“I think it’s for you.”

Finally, Farlan reads the very thing he’d discouraged his sister to do. The first line reads, “My brother is more afraid of my death than I am so I’m forging ahead to my future, in hopes that he will have something positive to look forward to instead.”

The meeting leaves him shaken for some reason.

* * *

 “Levi, I’m afraid."

He remembers who Farlan reminds him of. Erwin, of course, and somehow when he says it, everything feels too real, too close. A creature without death is a creature without fear, and yet, Erwin trembles. 

"Good, fear makes you human.”

And for the first time since Levi has felt nothing but sick, he feels human, too. He seeks out Erwin's embrace without a word, suddenly hungry for comfort himself. He regrets not asking Isabel how to handle the fear.


	22. Old Flame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Michael."
> 
> Again, there's that chuckle on the other end of the line. "I hear you go by Erwin now. I didn't think you'd call so soon."
> 
> It is a lie. They've been waiting for Levi to leave his office. "Can you meet tonight?"

"If I wasn’t about to die, I’d be laughing my ass off.”

”Hello again.”

Mike Zacharius is not a well known doctor in Chicago. In fact, he is not well known anywhere by his own doing. One of a vampire's best tools is anonymity but somehow Levi finds him on the Internet for a second opinion in an act of desperation, maybe of recklessness. 

Maybe it's fate, Levi entertains the idea. If vampires exist, surely other ridiculous things could, too. Like finding this man by chance. Twice. Who knew his mystery fuck buddy from not even a year and a half ago works in the cancer wing of another reputable, but less prestigious hospital in Chicago. Big, blond, bright. Doctor. Vampire.

Maybe Levi has a type.

Mike sniffs deeply just as Erwin arrives right behind Levi, caught frozen in the threshold of the office, and when Mike smiles widely at him, he doesn’t speak. This is not the first time he meets the good doctor either.

“This is going to be interesting,” Mike exhales, amused. “Hello, stranger.”

Before anything, Levi gives Erwin a look. The man is blushing, right at the edge of having to explain something as if he'd been caught red-handed. He's never seen Erwin quite so awkward. “We’re, ah, acquainted,” Erwin supplies.

“Ex?”

Mike’s chuckle is a resounding answer. "We're old  _friends_."

Levi groans. As if the cancer wasn't enough, his life is just filled with comedy. “Maybe you should go home. You're making this weird.” 

Erwin protests but Levi insists. It is a short conversation. "Hange will pick me up. We're supposed to meet up later, anyway. Please. Just go. I'll see you later."

Mike can't help laughing when Erwin reaches for a handshake. He takes it and they both watch Erwin leave. But not before kissing Levi on the cheek, asking—almost begging softly—to call if he needs him. Levi is sufficiently embarrassed.

There's a pause when it's just the two of them in Mike's office. Levi looks him in the eye. Sharp as ever, Mike remembers wondering when they first met if Levi was a vampire, too. He looked at him, as he looks at him now, like he's about to pounce. But with the paleness of his skin and the bald spots his knitted beanie doesn't quite cover, Levi looks so much less threatening.

“Did he—?”

“I didn’t take you as someone who’d care,” Mike cuts him off softly.

“I don’t,” Levi shrugs. “But we’re in a sensitive situation and I’d rather he had his shit together through this.”

“Dr. Zoe explained,” Mike gestures to one of the chairs across from his desk. Levi had asked Hange to schedule the appointment for him, not to share his personal life story to someone who'd seen him naked and covered him in hickies at some point. “And no. I would never have let him turn me. He’s too… ”

“Attached.” Mike nods.

Levi settles into the chair, actually grateful for the awkwardness that had driven Erwin away. It would be impossible to have this conversation with Erwin in the room. Levi had his shit less together, tired of holding himself up. His body just isn't keeping up anymore and, what's more, he can't keep up. The scans he gets every week are getting harder and harder to look at. The people around him find it harder to look at him. 

When he was a younger man, his mother had died of a swift death and he had hoped he would meet the same fate. Better to not have something so dreadful ahead. But he doesn't have that luxury. The questions he had listed in a piece of paper neatly folded in his pocket burn on his tongue. He can't quite say what he had come here for.

Mike leans forward, inhaling deeply and Levi wonders how sick he smells like. "So, Levi, shall we talk about your comfort care options?"

The relief is almost overwhelming.

* * *

 

Erwin berates himself for ever thinking that this would be different. Easy, even.

Being immortal is easy. Turning someone else then killing them off when they’re tired of the world and of you is easy. Devoting yourself to a dying man, not so much.

There’s a scratch of helplessness there that makes Erwin itch. That with all the knowledge, experience, and practice at his fingertips, all he has to show for are clumps of Levi’s hair as he fishes them out of the shower drain.

Thinking of Levi growing old had made him wistful but he always figured there will be time to get used to it. Like making ditches in the spine of a well-loved book. But Levi’s illness makes him dreadful, sick. He is anxious. Everything has come so easily to him. He had decades upon decades to perfect the way to live, but the art of dying evades him.

After Levi sends him a text letting him know that Hange had picked him up, he dials another number and waits.

"Michael."

Again, there's that chuckle on the other end of the line. "I hear you go by Erwin now. I didn't think you'd call so soon."

It is a lie. They've been waiting for Levi to leave his office. "Can you meet tonight?"

They meet at a bar not far from Mike's hospital. Many of the hospital's staff are regulars there. Some grab a beer before coming home, unloading the burden of disease and healing onto a sticky glass. Some fueling with greasy food and soda before their graveyard shift. In a booth towards the back, Mike waits for Erwin. 

His scent pervades the air even before he opens the door. Mike could smell his skin, prickly with loneliness. The poor bastard hasn't changed.

"I've ordered your drink," Mike says when Erwin finds him and sits across from him. The light hanging low between them casts a gloom on Erwin's features. He nods in thanks.

"How are you?" Erwin ventures. 

Mike chuckles. Then sniffs. Erwin knows the act is futile, Mike can smell the truth beating in his heart. "We both know why you're here. And no, Levi isn't going to make it."

Erwin shrinks. Poor bastard, indeed. "This has happened before, hasn't it? What's different now?"

The scotch arrives and Erwin toys with the glass between his hands. He had always mourned his lovers. He had always taken their deaths as his own doing. Nothing is different now. Except everything feels like it is. 

"I thought he was a vampire," Mike fills the silence.

Once upon a time they had a lull in their conversation and when neither breached it, it had lasted almost a whole century. It was when Mike has smelled the difference in Erwin, even before the disease of immortality had heightened his senses. He had always had that heady smell, sad and sour and lonely, wrapped around him like a possessive lover. He knew he could not compete, would not want to get involved with this man's masochistic affair. When he was offered everlasting love, Mike had kindly refused. Erwin had gone, Mike let him. 

He had gone by a different name them but then a rose by any other smell is just as sweet. "I've never met anyone quite so graceful as he is," Mike says to no one in particular. "Even more so than the both of us."

Erwin laughs at that. The ice clinks against his glass as he tips it towards his lips. "You've met him, haven't you? Levi is many beautiful things but graceful is hardly appropriate." 

Mike raises a shoulder slightly. “He accepts his fate far better than we do, that’s for sure. Humans die kicking and screaming. And us. We’re just pathetic about it.”

He notices Erwin's drink is a lighter amber, the ice cubes smaller. "I can't help him, my friend."

"Neither can I," Erwin says almost instantly. There is a spike in the air, like a whip of burnt anger.

Mike knows this scent well. He’s only sensed it with his own kind—vampires who once held a dear and bright brand hope that their curse could be a gift, that they could advance medicine far beyond their human counterparts. The aroma of a kind of resentment that with all the glory of living forever, they are so incapable of the simplest things. They could not save the dying, much less themselves sometimes.

“You’re not supposed to,” Mike says. Erwin doesn’t take his eyes from his drink. “You’re not God. You’re just a man.”

Because once upon a time Mike had said the same to him with a kind smile as he broke Erwin’s heart with his refusal. He had wanted to save Mike from the ravages of age, from death, from solitude. In the end, he wonders who he had really wanted to save.

Something sweet pervades the air, mixed with the scotch in Erwin’s breath.

“What a terrible creature to be,” Erwin says.

Mike taps his glass against Erwin’s, now empty. “And yet, we all try to be.”

They laugh quietly with the freedom of men who could die at any moment.


	23. Good Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Levi could start believing in that one great love that would stand time.

Mike sends him home that day with questions to ask himself. Take your time, he says and, of course Levi rolls his eyes.

"I don't have much of that left, doc," Levi says. "I'm going to die soon. Even I know that."

Mike takes a moment. "True. But until then, what are you living for?"

* * *

 

_What is your understanding of your current health or conditions?_

Erwin lingers. It’s sweet. He watches Levi from the corner of his eyes, black and boundless as they are when he sips his bloodied coffee. Levi catches him and scowls.

“What, what’s wrong with your coffee?”

“Nothing, darling,” Erwin swallows. Without his beanies and thick sweaters, Levi’s all thinning hair and thinning flesh. Erwin forces a smile.

“Don’t do that,” Levi says. Erwin drops the expression. It's replaced with something sheepish, shy, like the look of budding romance. But it's genuine and comforting.

“I can stay home.”

“Nah, I'll be okay.” Levi feels weak for wanting to say yes but has something important and private to do today. He knows tomorrow Erwin will offer again. And he knows tomorrow he will accept.

Without fail he sees Erwin to the door, feels for the flask of blood he's tucked in his jacket, fixes his tie, and reminds him not to forget toothpaste on his way home.

“Yes, dear,” Erwin smirks. These days are mostly lighter. Something had lifted from their home, as if the tension they're trapped themselves in had dissolved one morning and all that's left is a relaxed air of waiting. The tightness of Erwin's embraces are no longer of desperation. His affections are welcomed. They linger, their skin almost always touching. They want for nothing. It feels almost like a vacation. A honeymoon, maybe.

Levi pinches his butt as farewell and wonders if the neighbors think they're married.

Levi lets himself imagine it all morning and tells Erwin when he calls at lunch. They don't make plans but they giggle about it for a good half hour.

* * *

  _If your current condition worsens, what are your goals?_

While Erwin is away, Levi sits in the living room with the laptop propped on a pillow on his lap. He plans to get this will notarized later. Only he realizes he has nothing of value to leave behind. He had not been one to keep mementos either. And even if he had, he had no one to leave them with.

The thought leaves him feeling selfish.

So instead he makes good on his promise and asked that his body be donated to science, calling Hange to ask if he can specifically ask for his corpse to be in her care. It turns out to be a much more complicated decision and somewhere in that conversation, Hange asks what he plans to do for his funeral. They decide Hange will handle it, for all the goodbyes she can handle. For all the goodbyes she needs. It's funny how enthusiastic she is about it. The phone call turns into a visit later that night and Hange brings him and Erwin food and ends up staying the night, too. The affair is not at all morbid, Hange is kind to do him this favor.

A letter, nothing else, will be left to Erwin. It had taken Isabel months to write the essay, her living testament and letter to her brother, searching and searching for the word for a brother orphaned of a sister. It takes Levi a day to write Erwin, in his unsteady hand. He doesn't have to search for the words.

_I had asked for a sign. Then I met you. You’re so fucking lost it's funny sometimes. Did a shit job of being my sign really. So maybe I’m yours. Maybe you forgot how to handle the memories but I promise, when it stops hurting, it will be good. I hope to god it will be good. Because this has been the best for me._

For most of his life he believed that love was finite just like everything, that unlike the dust of comets and the light of dead stars, it will not echo through time and space long after lovers are gone. And he had been content with it, with his solitude. A quiet comfort in the midst of it all. A lone shooting star, there and gone. There are other ways to skirt around this massive chaos of a thing without falling in. To watch it fold and unfold in a kaleidoscope of wonder, like the Milky Way strewn across the sky over and over again. To feel small and insignificant in the face of it. Levi believed none of it was worth the risk of getting lost in its depths, that he had no right to be at the very center of its fearsome magnitude.

_I don't know if this is your one great love but I think we did good. -L_

He gets the will notarized and tucks the letter to Erwin in his night stand.

* * *

  _What are your fears?_

He’s on the floor, alone when Erwin steps out for some errands, with snot in his nose and his vision a blur of madness. His lungs burn with heaving, his shoulders burn with effort. The tea seeps into the woodwork and he narrowly avoids the broken handle of the cup, shattered on the floor.

Levi’s legs had given up under him. When he looks behind him, his right knee is twisted uncomfortably. It looks uncomfortable but feels like nothing.

“Fuck,” he sobs. His fist pounds the hardwood floor, the wet sound of it answers him. “ _FUCK_!”

With his head on his arms, he thinks of Erwin. Of Hange. Of his mother. He is out of time. 

Then he breathes and crawls his way to the couch.

* * *

  _Are there any compromises you are willing to make or not?_

”What happened?” Erwin steps over the broken cup, tea already staining his floors. “Are you hurt?”

Levi looks up from his book, snuggled beneath covers and meets Erwin's touch, his warm hand on his jaw. With his face this close, Levi can't help but reach up, feel the coarse beard starting to grow in, the eternally youthful skin, the small line of worry around his mouth that will never progress past that. The fatigue melts with the comfort of seeing Erwin, of having just a little more time. Maybe they can cheat fate just a little more. They can push their luck just a little further. “I fell. Sorry, I wanted to clean up.”

”Don’t worry about that. You fell? What happened?” Erwin's face crumples into worry. Now, that won't do.

Levi pauses. His bony shoulder lifts under Erwin's touch. A small simple thing smooths and soothes Erwin. “Can't feel my legs. And I really have to shit.”

Erwin carries him to the bathroom after checking him for injury. He even makes the extra effort of blasting the toilet seat with the hair dryer before setting Levi down on it.

"Wow, who knew I'm a fucking princess," Levi says, pulling his pants down. Erwin hangs around, refilling the toilet paper, then just waiting by the sink. “What? I can still wipe. Go away now,” Levi plugs his nose, cackling, farting. It's starting to get foul. “Oh my god, Erwin go, save yourself!”

It smells wretched. Like medicine and spoiled milk. Erwin breaks into laughter, his whole body shaking and heaving with mirth, his belly filled with the hilarity of it. It’s such a beautiful fucking sound and Levi aches so much. If he were given the chance, how could he give ever this up?

“I love you,” Levi says.

Erwin’s glee calms as he wipes the tears in his eyes. In that glorious moment, with Levi’s underwear around his ankles, they lock eyes and all is right in the world.

“I love you, Erwin.”

Erwin closes the distance between them easily and kisses him. Levi tastes just like he did when they first kissed and the skies erupt in a leonid storm of memories, of promises, of raw and painful longing. It’s not long before he’s laughing again. “My goodness, that’s vile!”

He snickers all the way out to the bathroom, returning later to Levi’s call.

* * *

_What would a good day be like?_

He helps Levi shower afterwards, filling the tub with warm water when they're done. He is gentle with Levi’s aches and generous with his kisses. The strays strands of Levi's hair are gathered in the trash bin, soon forgotten.

Regret would hit him anytime now, Levi thinks as he watches Erwin undress and offer a hand to him, knee deep in scented water. He should’ve done this more. Sooner. Better. But it never comes. Only more water and soap and comfort. The evening ends with both of them in the bath, Levi cradled in Erwin’s arms. His head heavy with warmth against Erwin’s shoulder. A soft drip-drip marks the lazy seconds. The air smells of honey, and roses, and home.

“This is my happy place,” Levi announces.

“It is a nice tub, isn’t it,” Erwin agrees sleepily against the soft spot behind his ear.

Levi could start believing in that one great love that would stand time. They had been given this chance.

“I meant you.”

 

_-Fin-_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you.
> 
> for Jenn, Beau, Amanda.
> 
> for you.


End file.
